


Bat-Shit Crazy

by Delupilin, FigmentOfImagination



Series: Bat Shenanigans [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Alfred deserves a damn break, Batfamily Feels, Brotherly Bonding, Bruce is emotionally inept, Damian is a little shit, Dick is worried about his brothers, Jason is a stubborn ass, Jason wants nothing to do with the bats, They all need some better coping mechanisms, Tim is the leader of the Teen Titans, Tim needs to go to bed, rated mature for language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2019-09-02 00:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 68,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16776376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delupilin/pseuds/Delupilin, https://archiveofourown.org/users/FigmentOfImagination/pseuds/FigmentOfImagination
Summary: Tim is having a shit day and the last thing he expects is the Outlaws bursting into the Teen Titans' Tower to enlist his help in saving the world. And while Jason would rather work with anyone other than his Replacement they are forced to put aside their differences for the greater good. And because Roy and Kori say so.In other words, batfam shenanigans and the unlikely friendship between Jason and Tim. The inspiration for this story is the many headcanons my friend, FigmentOfImagination, and I agree on.





	1. Tim Drake

There were many things Tim hadn’t been expecting to deal with that day. The fact that he got a call from Wayne Enterprises wanting to confirm the deadline for a report he’d already sent them. That his coffee machine malfunctioned and just as he’d sat down to fix it, the Teen Titans contacted him, saying they had a ‘situation’, the details of which they didn’t want to risk telling him over a secure line just in case someone was listening. That this was actually a real issue since, upon arriving at their headquarters, he promptly found out that someone had actually managed to hack the tower’s mainframe. He certainly didn’t expect to trace the hack to a group of tech thieves planning something sinister that would, and these were their words, not his, “throw the world into a new dark age”. But the one thing, above all else, he hadn’t expected, was the Outlaws waltzing into the tower. After all, with most of the systems down, one of them being the security, there was nothing preventing them from entering.

Tim, or Red Robin as he was currently in his gear, looked up from his findings as the door opened only to immediately hear a vaguely familiar voice going:

“Oh fuck no! You didn’t say we’d be working with _him_!”

Red Hood. The sight of the former Robin should have had Tim drawing his weapons and readying himself for a fight, at least that’s what his instincts were telling him. Except that’d only end badly for everyone involved, and his outburst had piqued Tim’s curiosity.

“That’s cause I knew you’d react like that!” Arsenal responded quickly, glancing towards where the Red Robin was staring inquisitively. “Look, Hood, I know you don’t like the bats…”

“Understatement of the year,” Hood scoffed, crossing his arms. But he wasn’t leaving, Tim noticed, which meant that no matter how much Hood didn’t want to be in the same room as him, they still needed something.

“But he’s the only one who’d be able to pull it off,” Arsenal continued as if his friend hadn’t said anything.

“ _He’s_ the tech genius you knew?!” Hood asked incredulously.

“Maybe this was a bad idea…” Starfire started.

“You think?” Hood asked sarcastically, looking for all intents and purposes like he was gonna bolt. “What makes you think he’d even wanna help us?”

Well, Tim thought, at this point they’d have to make a pretty compelling case. Talking like he wasn’t in the room they’d just entered didn’t really make a compelling case.

“Because we all want the same thing in this case, to protect civilians,” Arsenal argued, gesturing to where Tim was very much still standing.

Hood’s helmet moved, as if he’d glanced at Tim and then back to Arsenal again. When he spoke again, his voice was a low hiss. Like that would prevent Tim from hearing every word… “I tried to kill him.”

That was the thing that had Tim interrupting the argument. Well, that and the fact that it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. “You were obviously under the effect of the Lazarus Pit. I don’t hold it against you.”

“See?” Arsenal grinned, ecstatic at having his argument backed up. “Told you he was smart!”

“I tried to _kill_ you,” Hood just repeated, completely ignoring his friend’s comment. “How the fuck can you not hold that against me?!”

“You were basically brainwashed and you didn’t actually succeed so it’s all good,” Tim shrugged. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because the next moment, Hood was reaching for his gun.

“Oh yeah well I can damn well finish the job, Replacement,” he snarled only for Arsenal and Starfire to grab on to both his arms.

“Whoa, no need for that! We can talk this out with words, not bullets!” Arsenal exclaimed all the while he was struggling to keep Hood from pulling out his gun and actually trying to murder Tim.

“And we voted on this! No more killing! It only brings us more trouble than it’s worth!” Starfire voiced.

And sure, while Tim had indeed drawn his staff just in case Hood did follow through on the threat, now he just took a deep breath, muttering quietly to himself: “I need more coffee.”

Holstering his weapon, he grabbed his mug and walked from where he’d been standing by the main computer to the coffee machine in the small kitchen area of the Main Ops room, which of course also served as a living room. For a brief moment, Tim just stared at the two items in his hands, the mug and the coffee pot, seriously considering if he should just drop the mug and drink straight out of the pot. No, he sighed lightly to himself, blocking out the argument that was still going on between the three Outlaws. He was raised better than to drink straight from the pot. So pouring the coffee to the brim and downing the entire mug of scalding caffeine in one go was obviously the only way to go about this. It wasn’t even good coffee. No, Kon-El and Wonder Girl had, in an attempt to curb Tim’s non-stop intake of coffee, elected only to buy the cheap coffee. Sure, Tim could’ve brought his own, but with everything else going on he’d forgotten.

Pouring himself a second mug of coffee, Tim looked up to find the Outlaws staring at him. Great, they’d stopped arguing.

“Did he just…” Starfire was the first to say.

“He did,” Arsenal confirmed slowly. “Dude, that pot was fucking steaming. How are you not cussing the high heavens?”

“Cause he’s a bat. We all went through training on how to deal with pain,” Hood scoffed although he still seemed vaguely disturbed by the amount of coffee Tim had just downed. Yeah, well, if they wanted his help they were gonna have to deal with his coffee habits as well.

“What he said. Now, can we get to the reason you guys are barging into this fine living room?” Tim asked, gesturing to the empty room around them. He’d already sent the rest of the Titans to deal with crisis-aversion. Actually, he’d been about to contact them to tell them what he’d found when the Outlaws had invaded the tower. In all fairness, he probably still should contact the others just in case things went awry but he wanted to hear them out first.

“Of course, right, we need your help,” Arsenal said as if that explained everything.

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to go a bit more into detail. We already got something of a situation here as you might’ve noticed from the missing security,” Tim said, walking back to the computer and placing his mug on a panel that was decidedly not made to be a table. Wonder Girl would definitely throw a fit if she saw. Good thing she wasn’t there.

“Okay, are all the bats fucking smart asses or is it just the ones I’ve met personally?” Arsenal asked, looking from Hood to Tim as if they held all the answers.

Tim was about to reply, had already rolled his eyes, when Hood beat him too, his voice the epitome of smug. “Yeah that was also part of training.”

For a brief second, Arsenal and Starfire seemed speechless, just looking at each other as if questioning why they were putting up with that guy. Tim, on the other hand, couldn’t help the huff of laughter escaping him, which the Hood no doubt caught despite Tim’s efforts to mask it by drinking half his mug of coffee.

“So, we gonna keep reminiscing or did you guys want to explain why you’re here? Other than needing my help? Or can I go deal with the idiots currently trying to monopolise all the tech in the world?” Tim asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He really needed to contact his team so they could get going. But there was also the matter of the tower’s security. They had all sorts of sensitive information that would remain unprotected should the mission ahead require all of them.

Arsenal seemed to break out of his stupor at that. “Wait. They steal tech and are threatening to throw everyone into the New Dark Ages? Those guys?”

“Yes,” Tim confirmed albeit reluctantly all the while narrowing his eyes at the archer without offering any additional information. Best to find out what they knew about this guys first.

“Oh great, he already fucking knows about them, saves us some time,” Hood drawled, his posture still a testament to how much he didn’t want to be there. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say they were the ones who made it possible for me to even enter the building.”

Tim’s silence was all the answer they needed to confirm that theory. It was Starfire who broke the silence once more. “So, we’re obviously all after the same guys. All we need is to find their headquarters and makes a plan on how to deal with the dual thingamajigs allowing them to control the tech all over the world.”

“Already found it, and the dual thingama-what-now?” Tim asked, half a plan already forming in his head.

“We got the blueprints to the device their using to hack into tech databases off of one of their guys,” Arsenal began, already digging out said blueprint and spreading it out on one of the tables. “It’s split into two separate consoles, both wired to some sort of explosive. As far as I can tell it’s a safety-precaution to ensure we won’t be able take one out without the other setting off the explosion.”

Tim had already moved to look at the prints, immediately seeing what Arsenal was concerned about. “We would need to shut them down at exactly the same time or they’d send a code triggering not only the explosives but multiple missile launches all over the country.”

“Exactly, so, you in?” Arsenal said, eyes practically gleaming which was the moment Tim realised he’d said ‘we would need to’. ‘We’.

“I’m in. Just let me contact the rest of my team,” Tim started to say only for Hood to interrupt.

“No, no, no, no, no, I get we _might_ need Replacement for the hack job but we are more than capable of handling everything else without some teenage brats getting in our way,” Hood argued hotly, seemingly staring down both Arsenal and Tim from behind his helmet. The archer glanced at Tim from the corner of his eye, mentally begging Tim to stand down on this.

Finally Tim sighed. “Fine. Just let me get Superboy here to watch the tower while I’m gone.”

“They hit you that bad, huh?” Arsenal asked sympathetically to which Tim just sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“I’ve managed to force them out of our comms but yeah, it’s bad,” Tim sighed, walking towards the main computer to make sure that his code was still functioning properly. It was. “Arsenal, Starfire, you know where the comms are kept, grab some and set it up to channel 2.978265.”

He didn’t even bother checking if they’d heard him before he switched to the channel the others were on. “Superboy, I need you back at the tower.”

Barely a moment went by before Kon-El’s voice sounded in his ear. “ _Be right there. Everything okay on your end, Red?_ ”

“Yeah, I just need to leave with the Outlaws to fix this mess,” Tim replied, downing the rest of his, now cold, coffee in one go.

“ _Wait, I don’t think I heard that right. The outlaws? As in Red Hood, Arsenal, and Starfire? Those Outlaws?_ ” Tim appreciated the concern in his best friend’s tone, he really did, but this was no time to start worrying about shit like that.

“Yeah, those Outlaws,” Tim sighed calmly as the doors to the living room whooshed open once more, revealing a very displeased Kon-El. Switching off his comm, Tim turned to face his friend who was glaring at everyone in the room. “Look, we’re after the same guys. I just need you to keep the tower safe while I’m gone.”

It took Superboy one glance at Tim’s face to tell that he wasn’t about to change his mind. So instead he turned to glared at Red Hood. “You hurt him and I will make you suffer.”

“Little too late for that but fair,” Hood shrugged, handling the situation surprisingly well considering that he’d just been threatened. “Now can we get out of here already? I don’t wanna spend anymore time around Replacement than I have to.”

“I mean it, Hood. You already tried to kill him once and I don’t trust you to-” Kon-El continued threateningly.

“Listen, Laser-brain, if I wanted to shoot him don’t you think I would have done it already, huh? Jesus Christ, are titans always this dumb?” Hood interrupted, looking around at everyone in the room as if to make sure they all understood what he’d just said. To be fair, he did seem like he was angry with everyone in the room.

“Okay that was uncalled for!” Arsenal exclaimed indignantly.

“Just calling it like it is, Arse,” Jason replied pleasantly. Oh he was most definitely smiling underneath that helmet, Tim just knew it.

“Let’s just… go to the ship,” Starfire suggested helpfully before Arsenal could hit Hood for that nickname. “Arsenal and I promise to keep Red Robin safe. You know us, we wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”

“You worry too much, Superboy. And anyways, I can hold my own in a fight,” Tim muttered as he headed for the door. “Just make sure the tower stays in one piece. Where are you guys parked?”

“It’s just this way,” Starfire replied with a smile, dragging a still muttering Arsenal behind her. Tim followed mutely, mentally checking everything he’d brought with him just to see if there was anything he’d missed. And trying to ignore the fact that he could feel Red Hood’s glare through the latter’s helmet.

It wasn’t long before they were inside the Outlaw’s ship, Tim taking in his surroundings immediately upon setting foot in it which meant that he paused briefly. Now, that wouldn’t have been a problem had it not been for Hood to take the opportunity to harshly bump his shoulder into Tim’s as he walked past him.

“Outta the way, Replacement,” Hood called over his shoulder as he moved further into the ship, promptly dropping down in one of the chairs.

Electing to ignore the comment, Tim picked the seat furthest away from Hood. It was obvious that the older vigilante didn’t want anything to do with him, so why bother agitating him further? It wasn’t worth the trouble, especially since they had to work together on this mission.

“So, you guys got any coffee on this ship?” Tim asked calmly only to suddenly feel three stares on him.

“You… just drank like, an entire pot of the stuff. How can you need _more_ coffee?” Arsenal asked incredulously.

“Cause I haven’t slept in 36 hours and it was only two or three mugs,” Tim shrugged casually like that was perfectly normal and to him it was. It wasn’t unusual for Tim to just… forget to sleep and honestly, between patrols of Gotham and work at Wayne Enterprises, sleep just didn’t seem important. The three others seemed to have an entirely different idea about that though.

“What the actual fuck?! I am not letting you risk _my_ friends’ lives just because your sorry ass is sleep deprived. You are taking a nap, right the fuck now,” Hood exclaimed angrily.

“I don’t need a nap. I’m fine,” Tim replied automatically because that’s what he did whenever Dick started lecturing him about his unhealthy sleep schedule or lack thereof.

“That was not a fucking suggestion, Replacement. You either nap or I am kicking you out of this flying ship,” Hood all but snarled, looking for all intents and purposes like he was gonna push himself out of his chair and follow through with the threat. Which was exactly why Tim rolled his eyes.

“You really should take a nap, Red Robin,” Starfire agreed. “We’ll wake you when we’ve landed.”

“No, what I should be doing is going over our strategy for when we arrive,” Tim replied. They had to see that that was more important than sleep.

“You’re not our damn team leader and we don’t need your fucking strategies, Replacement,” Jason growled. So much for the Outlaws wanting his help, Tim thought to himself and was about to say as much when Arsenal spoke up.

“Look, I love a good strategy as much as the next man but go to sleep, dude. You’re no use to anyone if you’re dead on your feet,” he said.

Except Tim wasn’t dead on his feet, not even close, he knew what that was like, mainly because it was just before he actually did collapse from sleep exhaustion but that wasn’t relevant for this argument. Still, he felt like Hood actually would throw him out of the ship if he didn’t start listening, and Tim didn’t really fancy falling to his death that day. So he begrudgingly decided to concede. The fight really wasn’t worth it.

“Should’ve just kept my mouth shut…” Tim muttered to himself, not counting on anyone of the others hearing him.

“Yeah, you should’ve,” Hood agreed. It was no secret that he didn’t want anything to do Tim but really, that was uncalled for. However, Tim let it go, not wanting to push his luck with the man who’d already tried to kill him once. Sure, it’d been under the effects of the Lazarus Pit but Tim would rather avoid the confrontation than test if Hood was serious about his threats.

“Fine, I’ll take a damn nap,” Tim conceded reluctantly, barely restraining himself from adding a ‘mom’ to that sentence because there was no doubt in his mind that Hood would shoot him. Not lethally, after all they needed him for the mission, but Tim would be shot. So it was with that in mind that he settled into his chair and did his damned best to drift of to sleep, only just managing to catch Hood saying something along the lines of ‘fucking finally, at least he’s quiet now’.


	2. Jason Todd

Jason wasn’t angry. Not at all. No, he was livid. Consumed with rage. It wasn’t the others’ fault, not really, but Roy fucking _knew_ how he felt about the bats, he _knew_ and still brought him to the Teen Titans’ Tower and proceeded to invite Tim Drake, the kid who _replaced_ Jason, along on the mission. Okay yeah, he was mad at Roy and his whole ‘do shit, beg for forgiveness later’ shtick. Sure, it worked but Jason preferred being in on the whole ‘do shit’ part of that plan and get Roy to beg for forgiveness of the person later. He did not care for being the one needed to forgive the shit.

“Jay…” Roy started saying, quietly so as to not wake up the sleeping Red Robin.

“Don’t, just don’t,” Jason snapped, staring out the ship’s window. “Kori, how long ‘til we’re there?”

“40 minutes until we reach the coordinates Red Robin gave us,” Kori replied gently, focusing on steering the ship although that didn’t mean she wasn’t listening to every word being said. After all, _someone_ had to be the grown up and Kori often decided to take on that role.

“All I’m saying is to go easier on the kid,” Roy continued, not at all deterred by Jason’s scowling it seemed.

“And all _I’m_ saying is shut the fuck up and stay out of my damn business, Roy,” Jason replied, his annoyance causing his voice to grow louder because maybe then Roy would just fucking drop it.

“Keep your voices down, guys,” Kori lightly admonished them both, drawing their attention towards the Red Robin who was currently curled up in his seat. He looked… peaceful, Jason noticed and then immediately grimaced and tried to think of something else.

“Look, he’s smart, a freaking genius and that is coming from _me_. That comment earlier about not wanting to listen to his strategy? Not cool, Jaybird,” Roy continued, his voice level due to Kori’s warning.

“So what? You want me to smile and start playing house because he’s another brat that was adopted into that clusterfuck of a family? Yeah no, not gonna happen,” Jason growled, crossing his arms as if that would deter Roy. He knew it wouldn’t. Never had.

“No, of course not. That’s not what I’m saying, Jay. I just want you to give the kid a damn break and listen to what he’s bringing to the table. There’s a reason he was elected leader of the Teen Titans,” Roy argued, giving Jason a look that he knew meant Roy was a hot second away from grabbing him by his shirt. Let him try, Jason thought smugly.

“Oh fuck off, Roy. I don’t have to do any of that shit,” Jason exclaimed, balling his fists up in an attempt to not just get up and kick Roy’s sorry ass.

“Okay, you know what, I’ve fucking had it with that whole ‘woe is me’ charade you got going. You went through hell, I know, you’ve actually talked to us about that, but that kid has done _nothing_. He’s not your asshole of a father and he certainly didn’t fucking kill you. Actually, he forgave _you_ for trying to kill _him_ ,” Roy said, throwing caution to the wind because apparently he thought this was important enough to anger both Jason _and_ Kori. “You don’t have to like him but fucking hell, stop being such a jerk.”

“You wanna fucking go?!” Jason asked, getting to his feet as he dropped any and all pretences of being quiet. How dare Roy bring that up?! He knew how Jason felt about Bruce; that man was not his damn father, so how dare he fucking allude to that being the case.

“Oh it is on,” Roy agreed as he too got out of his seat.

“Children, so help me lord above, I will turn this ship around!” Kori hissed, casting a glance over her shoulder to make sure Red Robin was still asleep, finding that thankfully the two morons hadn’t woken up the kid.

The two of them paused, both looking at Kori with matching expression of shock and guilt, although thankfully neither of them could see Jason’s due to his helmet. Finally Jason dropped back down into his seat, heavily.

“Fine, whatever, I can cut Replacement some slack. But don’t you ever fucking call Bruce my father again,” Jason grumbled, equal parts to placate Kori and because Roy actually had a point. He hated to admit it, it physically pained him to even think it but he’d do this for Roy. However, if any of them were expecting an apology they clearly didn’t know Jason as well as they thought they did. Good thing they weren’t.

The next second, Roy was sitting happily in his seat, glad that he’d gotten that much out of Jason. To be completely honest, Jason envied that trait of Roy’s, to be able to act like they hadn’t just been about to throw down. They’d most likely hug it out later but for now… Jason was still pissed.

So maybe it wasn’t that surprising that the rest of the flight was spent in tense silence. Or well, according to Jason it was tense silence because he couldn’t relax, not with Replacement peacefully napping in the seat furthest away from him. Yeah, he’d noticed the kid making a beeline for that one.

20 minutes of flight to go and Jason was cleaning his guns, making sure that they were loaded with rubber bullets because _someone_ would most likely throw a fit if he actually shot anyone. Whether it be Roy, Kori, or Replacement, he wasn’t quite certain.

10 minutes. No weapons of his own left to clean and he’d be damned if he was gonna start cleaning Roy’s. He was still angry, plus, the archer was somewhat touchy about his weapons. Jason was too. But with nothing else to do he was growing restless. He narrowed his eyes at the sleeping Red Robin, did he just move? Was he waking up? Jason hoped not. He wasn’t ready to start acting civil yet and if he cussed Replacement out again then Roy really would punch him. Maybe he should just… go over his weapons again. Yeah. That seemed like a plan.

7 minutes. Roy knew better than to talk to Jason but dammit if the archer looked over at him one more time with that obvious look of worry he would shoot him.

5 minutes. Now Replacement was actually waking up. It was like he knew they were almost there. Jason could feel himself tensing up, expecting well, something. He didn’t quite know what. Maybe that was why he felt relieved when the kid didn’t address him, didn’t even acknowledge that he was there, but instead turned to Kori.

“What’s the ETA?” Red Robin asked. He seemed alert, like he hadn’t just been napping.

“About 5 minutes from our destination,” Kori replied happily. Jason rolled his eyes, he could’ve told him that. Except that would mean actually interacting with Replacement. “Did you have a nice nap?”

Red Robin seemed to frown before shrugging. “I guess. Preferable to falling to my death in any case. You guys have a plan yet?”

“Not… in that many words…” Roy started cautiously. Jason had tensed visibly despite knowing that Roy wouldn’t give away their discussion but the feeling was still very much there. “Figured we’d go with our normal Plan A.”

“Which is what exactly?” Red Robin asked, eyes already narrowing at the archer.

“Winging it,” Jason replied despite himself. He also didn’t miss the look Roy was giving him, telling him to ‘play nice’. However, Replacement seemed to visibly bristle at his words.

“Yeah okay, nope, we’ve got a Plan B today,” he said, looking at the Outlaws as if daring them to speak up. Jason would, he longed to, but he’d promised to hear him out and Roy seemed to have faith in the kid’s intelligence so… he could always decide if it was a shit plan after hearing it.

Turned out that it was, in fact, not a shit plan. It was actually a very good plan, not that Jason would ever admit to thinking that, not even at gunpoint would those words cross his lips. If he had to take the words to his second grave then so be it. The only thing the plan didn’t touch on was who’d go with who when they inevitably had to split up since the schematics Replacement had pulled up showed the, to quote Kori, ‘dual thingamajigs’ in opposite ends of the base. Well, they’d probably tackle that problem when they got to it. Kori would most likely go with the kid. She was good with teenagers.

“We’re here, ship is in stealth-mode,” Kori called to them. “Everyone got their comms in?”

Muttered variations of ‘yes’ sounded from the three of them before Replacement piped up. “Let’s do a test, just to make sure they’re functioning properly.”

“Right, makes sense,” Roy agreed and what followed was a very awkward few minutes of making sure that everyone could hear everyone. It was a smart move, Jason had to admit begrudgingly, especially considering that Replacement wasn’t watching them, but the eerily dark base below them. He was checking to see if they’d cracked his code. And with that realisation came another important one, the kid didn’t want to voice his worries because that would be the same as admitting his skill wasn’t up to par. So he checked covertly and Jason had a sneaking suspicion it was because the kid honestly didn’t want any one of them to get hurt.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Jason voiced when he’d noticed Replacement’s silent sigh of relief. Kid had gotten his confirmation from the looks of it. So Jason holstered his guns, checked the rest of his gear quickly, and was out the door, fully expecting the others to follow as he dropped down on the roof of the building.

So far, so good. The rest of the team did follow, all without triggering any of the alarms that were bound to cover the base. Kori and the kid had chosen the drop zone well. Jason crouched down by the skylight, already recognising the booby-trap and gestured for Roy to come take a look at it. Except, it was Replacement who crouched down next to him, connected what Jason recognised as a newer and somehow even more modified version of Batman’s cryptographic sequencer to a small box that had escaped Jason’s first glance. A few seconds later the panels of the sky-light opened. Okay, so the kid did have his uses.

“Put the signal on an internal loop to stop it from alerting the main security system but it won’t last long,” Replacement told them quietly.

“So we haul ass,” Jason nodded, trying to ignore the slight smirk Red Robin was wearing.

“Yeah, we haul ass,” the kid nodded back, connected his grappling hook to the edge and rappelled down. Jason followed immediately after with his own grappling hook. Huh, apparently the lil Babybird had learned to get out of the way. Or maybe he was over by the door tasing a guard, yeah, he sure was. That worked too.

“Clear?” Roy asked as his feet touched the ground, Kori following soon after.

“Seems so,” Jason shrugged, gesturing to where the Babybird was tying the unconscious guys hands together with… zip ties. Yeah, that would do the trick.

“Well, we’re inside, undetected. Onto part two of Plan B, splitting up. A team goes North, B team goes South?” Roy continued, sounding awfully chipper at the prospect. “I call dibs on North.”

“I go South then,” Red Robin nodded, already on his way South when Jason grabbed his cape and yanked him back.

“Where’d you think you’re going, Replacement? We haven’t split up yet,” Jason snarled, taking a sort of grim satisfaction in the fact that he’d successfully ruffled the Babybird’s feathers. At least that’s what Jason took from the younger’s scowling as he fixed his cape. Didn’t last long before the careful mask of indifference was back though.

“I figured I was going alone,” Red Robin said as if that was all the explanation needed and in a way, it was. And honestly, Jason could see why he would’ve come to this conclusion.

“What? Like we’d leave a kid to run of on his own like that,” Roy exclaimed, using that tone he took whenever his morals were called into question. A mixture of hurt and disbelief that to the untrained ear sounded fake as shit. Good thing Jason’s ear wasn’t untrained. His friend was actually mildly horrified by the idea.

“Considering that I’m old enough to vote I hardly think classifying me as a kid is correct,” the kid said, sounding mildly miffed. “And it makes logical sense for me to go alone. You guys are a great team.”

“Someone _please_ explain to the kid how the buddy-system works,” Jason groaned exasperatedly. He was done. This kid was gonna get himself killed and, knowing the bats, they’d pin his death on Jason. All because of _one_ small incident.

“I know how it works; I’m not a damn kindergartener,” Red Robin scowled. “This is a waste of time.”

And you’re a waste of space, Jason thought grumpily. Hey, his thoughts were his own since Roy hadn’t found a way to listen to them yet.

“I vote that Hood goes with Red Robin since he’s basically your-” Roy started to say only to, very suddenly, find himself at gunpoint.

“Finish that sentence and you will be in a world of pain,” Jason snarled menacingly. If they weren’t in the middle of a mission where firing a gun would alert the enemy of their position he would’ve pulled the trigger. Roy could survive a few rubber bullets.

“I’m just saying-” Roy tried again.

“I dare you, Arse, I fucking dare you,” Jason interrupted again. Seriously, what was it with Roy and testing the waters about issues that Jason _clearly_ didn’t wanna talk about? And why was he doing it while they were on a covert mission to sabotage the tech thieves' plans? Oh... right. He knew Jason wouldn't risk the mission. Damn Roy for knowing him this well.

“Well since you are so graciously daring me-” Roy tried a third time and Jason was just about to pull the trigger when Kori spoke.

“Uhm, guys? Where did Red Robin go?”

Jason went completely still only to look over his shoulder at where Replacement was most decidedly _not_ standing. “I am going to kill him.”

“Not before I’ve had a word with him you’re not,” Kori said lowly, ‘had a word’ meaning ‘strangled’ in Kori-speak. Oh the kid had really done it this time. Kori was _pissed_ if the indication that she wasn’t gonna stop Jason from murdering Red Robin was anything to go by.

“You two head to the thingamajig, I’ll get the kid,” Jason scowled because somehow Roy had gotten it his way as Jason stalked towards the door Replacement had been headed for before.

“Make sure our kid’s safe!” Roy called after him like he had no worries of being discovered. There really was only one response to that. So since Roy didn’t worry about the bad guys hearing, Jason pointed his gun over his shoulder and fired, hoping that the bullet somehow hit Roy where it hurt. “You missed!”

Following Red Robin’s trail was easy enough, that is if you had Bat-training. All of the unconscious bodies were tied up and neatly tucked away in nooks and crannies that most people wouldn’t notice at all. Good thing Jason wasn’t most people then because he had only given the map of the enemy base a cursory glance. In retrospect, he probably should’ve studied it a bit more closely. Oh well, good thing Jason knew how to track the bats, after all, he’d had practise, he thought to himself, face set in a grim expression.

“Kid, come in,” Jason muttered through the comm.

“ _Yeah, I think he turned his comms off,_ ” sounded Roy’s voice in his ear.

“Why would he do that?” Jason sighed tiredly as he hit a guy over the back of the head. The kid must’ve missed that one, or snuck by him.

“ _To give us privacy? The discussion was getting a bit heated,_ ” Kori replied and Jason could just tell from her tone that she was frowning. Okay, that made sense to Jason.

“Still a stupid move,” Jason sighed. Batman would’ve never allowed it, that’s for sure. Then again, Bats wouldn’t have allowed the kid to team up with the Outlaws either so that argument was sort of a moot point.

Okay, he’d have to hand it to the kid, he’d covered a lot of ground. That, however, made Jason’s current job even more frustrating cause he had to catch up and Kori would throw a fit if the kid managed to hurt himself cause none of them noticed him leaving. That’s why he was relieved when he saw that stupid red cape, he told himself. Kori’s worrying was the only reason he scanned the kid over for injuries and breathed easier upon finding none, _he told himself_. And it was also why he grabbed the kid by the shoulder and shoved him against a wall.

“Drop the radio silence, Replacement,” Jason growled, taking a tiny bit of satisfaction from having gotten the drop on the other vigilante. The kid looked startled but quickly schooled his expression into neutrality and raised a hand to his comm.

“ _You found him? Thank god,_ ” Roy said through the comms, clearly having been waiting with bated breath.

“I see you guys worked it out,” Replacement said calmly, matter-of-factly, like Jason wasn’t aiming a gun at him. Which he very much was. The kid wasn’t going anywhere out of his sights anytime soon.

“ _Next time you disappear on us, I won’t stop Hood from shooting you,_ ” Kori told the kid evenly. Yup, she was back to being pissed. Jason had to bite back a laugh at the brief glint of fear in the kid’s eyes.

“We needed to get moving, still do,” Replacement said, eyeing Jason pointedly before looking to the gun and back again. They both knew he could break out of Jason’s grip and possibly disarm him but they were currently allies and such a stunt would only make Jason more inclined to shoot him.

“You gonna stay in my line of sight?” Jason asked in turn.

“Can’t promise that, you might turn your back,” Tim replied, not missing a beat.

“ _Kid, if he’s got you at gunpoint, which I’m assuming, I’d advise you to just agree,_ ” Roy chipped in. Both Jason and the Babybird rolled their eyes.

They looked at each other for a moment, both refusing to stand down and for a moment Jason did actually contemplate pulling the trigger, not like the kid would _die_.

“Fine, I promise to not disappear unless necessary,” Red Robin sighed grumpily. “Now, can you let go so we can get moving _before_ we’re discovered?”

“Fine,” Jason echoed and pushed the kid in front of him. “Lead the way, _Babybird_.”

He seemed to visibly tense at the nickname before finally sighing and moving forward. Good, Jason thought, it was his damn fault that they were now stuck together. If he hadn’t disappeared on them then Jason would’ve convinced the others that Kori was the best person to accompany the kid. But no, he had to do that stupid bat-move. The one that both Dick and Bruce did _all the damn time_. Okay sure, Jason too liked to disappear once in a while but dammit that damned family took it to the next level. So, now he was going to keep an eye on the kid and make sure he didn’t do anything stupid so Kori wouldn’t have his hide.

Replacement seemed to be perfectly fine with the silent treatment and honestly, Jason didn’t need anymore reasons to wanna shoot the kid. So knocking out unsuspecting bad guys in complete silence while making their way through the tech thieves’ base it was. They slowly but surely made their way towards the South Control Room, working in seemingly perfect tandem as they took out the enemies they came across. Later, Jason would probably play it back in his head, wondering how they somehow knew exactly what the other would do and would tally it up to Bat-Training.

Once at the control room, they did a quick sweep of the room, finding no one which meant that Red Robin got to work, busying himself with the giant monitor taking up most of the wall. Jason felt… oddly out of place as he took up his position by the door, making sure that no one entered. Through the comms, he heard the Babybird tell the others what was up on their end. Seemed like Roy and Kori had reached their control room in one piece as well.

Everything was going smoothly. Jason kept a vigilant watch on the hallway, the Babybird concentrated on the lines of code as it was flashing by impossibly fast, when suddenly:

“ _Fuck!_ ”

Jason felt like his gut had done one of Dick’s flips because that was Roy sounding panicked, and those were alarms suddenly blaring to life throughout the base.

“What did you do?” Jason asked partly worried and partly annoyed because things had been going so well up until that point.

“ _I uh… I might’ve…_ ” Roy started, sounding preoccupied. “ _Kori?!_ ”

Jason felt cold all of a sudden because that was panic if he’d ever heard it. Gut-wrenching panic.

“ _I’m fine. I got it. Keep going!_ ” Kori’s voice sounded in Jason’s ear, she sounded like she was in pain. Had enemies gotten the drop on her? “ _And you stay right where you are, Hood. We’ve got this._ ”

“We got incoming,” the Babybird piped up from his spot at the computer. A quick look confirmed that he’d pulled up the feed for the cameras further down the hall, the ones they’d taken pains to avoid earlier. Jason looked out the door again and cursed under his breath before making completely sure that his pistols were loaded.

“I got ‘em,” he nodded and the kid must’ve believed him cause he immediately went back to work, not that he’d stopped in the first place.

The second the enemies were in sight, Jason threw open the door and started shooting. If he’d been using actual bullets instead of rubber ones, they would’ve stayed down, and sure, some of them did, but not nearly enough and it wasn’t long before he was engaged in hand to hand combat. He easily fell into the well-known rhythm of dodge, punch, dodge, dodge, punch, kick, punch, dodge, as he placed himself between Red Robin and the door. The kid must’ve had complete faith in him because not once did he look back to check what Jason was doing. Or maybe he’d pulled up a feed of the room. That was more likely and explained how he dodged the one guy who briefly got past Jason before said guy was pushed back by Red Robin’s bo staff as it extended rapidly.

“Thought you said you got them,” Red Robin said, still typing away at the computer.

“Bite me,” Jason shot back, dodging a knife aimed at his gut and in the same motion introduced the guy to his knee. “Any chance you could hurry it up, _Robin_?”

The typing stopped, just for a few seconds but enough to tell Jason that he’d apparently hit a nerve. But if that hadn’t been a dead giveaway then the terse tone of Replacement’s voice was. “It’s _Red_ Robin. Arsenal, what’s your status?”

“ _Almost got it, but there’s a counter-_ ” Roy said, sounding very frazzled. Jason hear Kori’s cursing over the comms.

“I know. What does yours say?” the kid continued, his voice calm and collected.

“ _20,_ ” was Roy’s answer.

“Can you execute when the counter hits 7?” Babybird pressed on and Jason almost took a knife to the side for focusing on the conversation instead of the fight.

“ _No, 4,_ ” Roy replied shortly.

“We execute command at 4 then,” Red Robin confirmed so matter-of-factly that it took Jason a moment to register that they meant when the counter hit the 4 second marker.

“Cutting it awfully close, aren’t you?” he couldn’t help but ask, knocking the last enemy out against the now broken and bullet-riddled door frame.

“If you want us all to blow up then do keep talking,” Tim replied curtly. Was he… still mad about the Robin comment? A groan from the floor had Jason kicking the guilty party to make sure they stayed down.

Still, Jason wisely kept his mouth shut as he finally got an eye on the timer. 10 seconds left. Replacement wasn’t typing anymore, just had his finger hovering over one of the bigger keys. They were waiting on Roy, Jason realised. Well, hacking wasn’t exactly Roy’s speciality. Maybe they should’ve gotten two tech geniuses after all. Hindsight sure was a bitch.

“ _Got it!_ ” Roy called out. “ _At 4._ ”

“6, 5, now,” the kid pressed the button. The screen went completely black, the lights flickered out, and both of them seemed to freeze, counting the remaining seconds in their head. Three… two… one…

“So… good news, we’re not dead?” Jason said questioningly, breaking whatever spell that’d settled over Red Robin who now spun around to face him.

“And we foiled the bad guys’ plans,” Red Robin nodded with an almost uneasy smile. Jason looked him over, taking in how unsure the kid suddenly seemed now that he didn’t have a definitive goal to accomplish.

“ _Who even says ‘foiled’ anymore?_ ” Roy asked, his voice sounding almost breathless as he laughed.

“The lil Babybird, that’s who,” Jason smirked before gesturing to the way they’d come. “We heading back or…?”

“No, I was planning to spend the rest of my life in this room,” the kid replied stoically. 

“ _Was the sarcasm also part of training or…?_ ” Roy piped in, probably because he knew Jason was about to just leave the kid there.

“Came with the Crash Course in Being a Smart-ass,” Jason replied automatically, knowing that the others could hear the slight amusement in his voice. Red Robin could hear the slight amusement in his voice.

“ _We should meet up where we entered_ ,” Kori said, her relief practically tangible even through the comms. “ _Be careful guys, there are probably still henchmen around._ ”

“Sabotage the device before you leave,” Red Robin told the others all the while he himself grabbed hold of a piece of tech, which in Jason’s eyes looked to be important, and ripped it out of the device. “Hey, Hood.”

Jason’s attention snapped to the Babybird. He wasn’t quite sure if he liked the mischievous glint in Red Robin’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“Target practice,” the kid said before throwing the probably important piece of tech up into the air.

Jason didn’t even think about what he was doing, he just took the shot, shattering the tech with a well-aimed bullet. It took him a few seconds to realise he’d actually felt the need to shoot something. Badly. Had the kid somehow… picked up on that? No, he was wearing a helmet. He’d been trained in being hard to read. There was no way. But looking at the barely hidden twitch at the corner of lil Babybird’s mouth as he moved past Jason… it suddenly sounded a lot more plausible.

He made the conscious choice not to dwell on it. Rather, he should get to the meeting point and make sure Roy and Kori were safe. Then he’d hit Roy over the back of the head for activating the alarm. Yep, that sounded like the perfect plan, and with that in mind he joined Red Robin, both still on guard since Kori’s warning was very much logical, and started walking.

They were safe. All of them. Getting to the ship had been a walk in the park and now, with the Justice League called to clean up the mess, Red Robin’s idea, they were headed back to the Teen Titans’ Tower.

“You sure we can’t keep him?” Roy asked immediately after the call where Red Robin had skillfully dodged the League’s many questions about what had happened and who’d been involved. Even Jason had to admit that Babybird was good a being vague: a fact that was both hilarious and infuriating.

“No,” Jason replied tersely, folding his arms over his chest while wondering why the fuck the kid wasn’t objecting because surely he couldn’t be okay with that.

“But Jay, think about it! He’s our kid! Our genius, little, hacker kid!” Roy continued all the while Kori just smiled knowingly. Made sense. She knew the argument wasn’t a serious one, just Roy being silly. Didn’t mean he wasn’t getting on Jason’s nerves though.

“No, we’re not keeping the kid! We’re gonna drop him off with his actual family,” Jason said resolutely. What sounded unmistakably like an amused snort sounded from the vigilante in question. Jason immediately turned his glare on Replacement as he heard what sounded unmistakably as a muttered:

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

“Try that snark again, Babybird, and I’ll drop you off at Blüdhaven Police Department while Dick’s working,” Jason snapped at the kid who didn’t seem the least bit scared.

“Like Dick’s gonna stop me from being snarky. All he’d do is annoy me, which elicits more snark,” Red Robin shrugged, rolling his eyes just for good measure.

“Oh no, he won’t stop you. But I won’t have to listen to it anymore, Boy Wonder will,” Jason reasoned which drew another laugh from the kid.

“As if Dick would let you go once he’s seen you,” Red Robin said, still smiling because dammit he was right. Grayson _would_ try to make Jason stay. and maybe throw him back in Arkham.

“Fine, Kori can drop you off then. Good luck getting out of her grip,” Jason decided, nodding to himself.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” Kori called to the both of them, a smile carrying with her voice as she shook her head at them. They all knew that not even the greatest escape artist in the world could get out of Kori’s freakishly strong grip.

“Or just drop me off at the Teen Titans’ Tower. You know, where you guys found me,” the kid said, not needing to remind them that there still was a Tower of Teen Titans probably worried about him. At least, Jason assumed they were worried. He knew Kori and Roy would be worried if he went on a mission with someone who’d genuinely tried to kill him.

“I _guess_ we could do that,” Roy replied like the decision was a genuine disappointment. Did he actually want to be chased down by Superman’s clone?

“It would only be polite,” Kori nodded solemnly.

“We’ll just have to find another mission requiring a tech genius,” Roy finally conceded which had Jason turning towards his friend once more.

“No. No fucking way. This was a one time thing and we are never bringing any of the bats along on any of our mission ever again,” Jason argued adamantly, ignoring how the kid had turned to stare out the window, distancing himself from the situation.

Still, he didn’t miss the look Kori and Roy exchanged. The look that clearly conveyed their intent to do this whole thing again. And he wanted to tell them exactly what he thought of that, he really wanted to, but one look at the kid who’d already taken a step back from the situation, who was staring out into the now darkened sky, who had done nothing to intentionally hurt Jason, made him pause.

Well, that and the fact that Roy and Kori would literally have his hide should he start shit now, after a successful mission, where none of them got badly hurt. Sure, Roy accidentally electrocuted himself while trying to sabotage the device in their control room but he did that on a daily basis so no worries there. Kori was alright too, despite the enemies having indeed gotten the drop on her.

So, he let it go. For now. And when it came down to actually dropping the kid off, well, he’d mostly cooled down. Mostly. And it _was_ oddly satisfying to watch Kori squeeze the life outta the kid. Especially since Red Robin just sorta accepted his fate. After all, it was his own damn fault for going of on his own, worrying everyon-, Kori, worrying Kori.

“So, kid, how would you review the experience that is working with the Outlaws,” Roy asked in mock-seriousness.

The kid didn’t even miss a beat, just looked him straight in the eyes and said: “9 out of 10.”

“You know… that’s higher than I expected, all things considered,” Kori said quietly and Jason would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a tiny pang of guilt because that would be his fault. Yup. He was gonna lie his ass off. Not gonna admit that. Wouldn’t be the first time he’d lied in court. Probably wouldn't be the last either.

“Yeah, you didn’t have any coffee,” Red Robin continued, looking smug as he took in the two dumbstruck expressions he could see. Which then morphed into twin looks of grim determination that made Jason want to actually shoot himself just so he wouldn’t have to be around to see how those two would go about _fixing_ that for _next time_. And then the Babybird just offered them a small wave of his hands and left the nest. Ship. Jason meant ship.

It was quiet. For all but the ten seconds it took to get them flying again. Enough time for him to finally take off his damn helmet. “Sooooooo…”

“So, what, Roy?” Jason sighed, leaning on the armrest of his chair as he threw the helmet across the room. It had survived worse.

“Oh come on, Jay! You gotta admit, kid’s not that bad once you’ve been stuck tracking him down in an enemy base,” Roy pressed, looking like a kid before Christmas. The cat who got the cream. You get the gist.

“He’s a snarky, obnoxious kid who drinks entirely too much coffee,” Jason replied, hoping that his friend would take that as an answer. He should’ve known better, of course.

“Your point being?” Roy asked, knowing his friend entirely too well. What did Roy even hope to achieve? He knew how Jason felt about the bats.

“He’s…” Jason started, mind going back to the encounter in the Tower. He’d forgiven him for trying to kill him. Why he would do that, Jason didn’t know and honestly he was questioning the kid’s sanity, but he didn’t _seem_ like he held a grudge. Then there was the Target Practise which had been… uncanny. It made Jason uncomfortable to know that someone could read him like that. Usually, Jason was the one reading people. Not the other way around. But the kid hadn't used it against him, no, he'd actually made him feel slightly better. “Fine, I _guess_ Replace-”

“Tim,” Kori piped up quietly, causing Jason to look at her incredulously. She, however, just glanced back and smiled. “His name’s Tim.”

He’d known that. Of course Jason knew that. He’d been trying to _avoid_ that. Mainly because if he started using the kid’s name then he’d actually feel like a human being. He would be real and not someone Jason could just brush away as the child Bruce replaced him with. The kid who got to be Robin and actually survived it.

“I guess _Tim_ was alright,” Jason admitted through gritted teeth, ignoring how both Roy and Kori’s eyes seemed to twinkle with happiness. “But seriously, no more collaboration with bats.”

“Nah, don’t worry, we’re just gonna convince you to go to Gotham,” Roy said casually only to one moment later clutch his gut in pain. “Ow! Fucking shit! You fucking _bastard_! You _shot_ me!”

Jason blew the smoke from his gun before grinning at his friend. “It's just a rubber bullet. You’ll live.”

“I am going to smother you in your sleep,” Roy growled, pulling apart his costume to get access to the injury. Yep, that would definitely leave a bruise.

“I’d like to see you try,” Jason taunted gleefully.

“Children!” Kori warned the both of them, the one word instilling more fear into them than all the threats they could throw at each other combined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism in regards to grammar, pacing, and the like is appreciated. Please drop a Kudos if you like the story :)
> 
> Also, just letting you know, I'm gonna try to update this story on Mondays.


	3. Tim Drake

Tim heard the voices of his team before he saw them. And a voice that was most decidedly _not_ one of his team members, which was exactly why he wasn’t revealing his presence just yet.

“Okay, look, you all need to stop beating around the bush. Where was he last seen? Who took him? Seriously, you’ve dealt with people kidnapping Tim before, this should be standard procedure to you guys by now,” a very familiar voice sounded from the other side of the door. Tim let out a quiet sigh. Of course they would’ve called him.

“Yeah but, he’s never been kidnapped while in costume before,” Beast Boy said, sounding like he really didn’t want to be the one voicing that. While that was a blatant lie, Tim knew why no one wanted to be the one to tell Dick which was the exact reason he chose that moment to enter the main living area of the Tower.

“He was _what_?!” Dick screamed in horror.

“Relax, I wasn’t kidnapped, dammit,” Tim intervened, saving the Teen Titans, and Superboy, from an hour-long lecture. He then made a bee-line for the coffee pot because there was no way he was handling this conversation without. “As you can _clearly_ see, I’m alive and well. Seriously guys, did you have to call _him_?”

“Timmy, I am _hurt_! Of course they’d call me, I am your older brother,” Dick said as he stalked over to Tim and promptly confiscated the ground coffee beans. Tim could tell him that he’d just spent time with his other older brother. He could. But that would mean betraying the Outlaws’ trust. And Jason wouldn’t want Dick to know. Heck, Tim didn’t want Dick to know. “Seriously, they were panicked. Who took you?”

“No one _took_ me, Dick. I went on a mission as _someone_ already knew, Conner,” Tim said, narrowing his eyes at the offending Kryptonian.

“You were clearly coerced,” Kon-El, Conner, said, crossing his arms as he looked Tim over.

“I agreed to go with them the second they explained why they needed my help. Are you saying I’m that easily coerced?” Tim asked, an eyebrow raised in question because really, his friend should know him better than that. “And give me the damn coffee, Dick.”

“Not before someone here tells me who you ‘went with’,” Dick said, practically taking the poor coffee hostage. “And this is bad for you anyways.”

One of them was gonna crack, Tim could already tell, so he sighed tiredly, taking off his mask and rubbing his eyes in an effort to stay alert. “Look, Dick, it was just a group of vigilantes. They needed me to do some field hacking for them. Not a big deal.”

“Who?” Dick asked again and this time Tim just closed his eyes and leaned against the kitchen counter.

“It doesn’t matter who. I’m here, I’m alive, people overreacted. I need to fix the Tower’s main computer, so give me the damn coffee, Grayson,” Tim said, trying his very best to not escalate the situation. He’d had enough damn arguments for at least a week. “Speaking of the Tower. Could you guys start checking the perimeter? With security down I don’t want to leave anything up to chance.”

“Of course,” Wonder Girl, Cassie, nodded, gesturing for Raven, Beast Boy, and Bunker to follow. Superboy stayed put though, considering that he technically wasn’t a part of the current team.

Whether it was from seeing his brother looking genuinely tired or because Superboy was currently glaring at him, Dick rolled his eyes and handed over his hostage. “You’re going to tell me about it later, Timmy boy.”

“No, I’m not. Don’t look at me like that, Dick, you won’t make me change my mind,” Tim said, not even looking at his brother while he spoke. No, his attention was solely on the coffee pot as it brewed up shit coffee because he forgot to convince the Outlaws to stop by the store before dropping him off. The thought almost made Tim laugh. The four of them, in full costume, walking through a grocery store. That'd be the day.

“The others know,” Dick continued relentlessly, Tim instantly catching what he meant by that.

“But you won’t hear it from me. I owe them that at least,” Tim shrugged, filling up his coffee mug from earlier which had found its way back into the kitchen. Probably courtesy of either Cassie or Conner. Speaking of Conner. The guy had plopped down on the couch, clearly waiting to speak with Tim before he had to take of.

Dick’s gaze softened at Tim's reply before he nodded thoughtfully. Tim would’ve dodged Dick’s attempt at ruffling his hair but he was tired. Drained really. So he just let it happen. “When’d you last sleep, kiddo?”

“I took a nap earlier,” Tim shrugged before making his way towards the computer. Once he’d downed half his cup of coffee and placed himself in front of the many panels he felt a little more awake. This he could concentrate on. This he could deal with right now.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Dick admonished him lightly. Tim did know. That’s why he was frowning. “Hey Conner, you know how to cook?”

“I don’t think you’re gonna find anything useful _for_ cooking in that fridge,” Conner said, voice slightly accusatory. Yeah, he got that right, Tim thought.

“Yep, nothing, ordering out it is. Anything you want in particular, Timmy?” Dick called, getting just a small smile from his brother.

“Pizza,” Tim muttered before he could stop himself. Conner repeated it to Dick since he didn’t have superhuman hearing.

“Same as usual?” Dick asked not even needing Tim’s nod to confirm it. “I’ll find out what the others want. What about you, Conner?”

“Nothing for me, I gotta go soon,” Conner smiled. He’d only shown up because Tim had called him and asked for his help. Although, he did drop by often enough that it wasn’t unusual for him to be included in a mass-pizza order.

“More for us then. See ya, Kon-El,” Dirk chirped cheerily, like he knew that Conner would be gone by the time he got back.

“See you, Dick,” Conner replied easily, waving at Dick as the latter walked out the door. Tim didn’t even look up from his work.

The two of them continued to sit in silence. Tim working and Conner glancing over at him in worry. Three coffee sips and the main utilities of the Tower restored later, Tim finally gave in.

“You might as well just say it.”

“You shouldn’t have gone with him. Not alone,” Conner said, cutting right down to the heart of the matter. Tim took a deep breath.

“I didn’t go alone,” was his answer because technically he hadn’t. Arsenal, Roy, and Starfire, Kori, had been there too.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Conner admonished him lightly. “He tried to-”

“He was brainwashed, Conner. The League of Assassins was in his head, turning his own damn thoughts against him,” Tim said, looking up from the lines of code covering the screen because he _needed_ Conner to understand. And Conner would. After all he’d been through he would understand. “They used him. I can’t hold him accountable for that, no one can.”

Conner was quiet as he mulled it over. Tim knew it’d been a sorta low blow to remind his friend of something he’d rather forget entirely but he’d needed him to understand why Tim wasn’t going to treat Jason like a crazed murderer. Honestly, Tim didn’t believe he was.

“Okay. Okay, I get it. Just,” Conner paused, his brows furrowing as he looked at Tim. “Be careful, alright? He’s still dangerous.”

“We all are,” Tim shrugged with just a sliver of a smile as he held his friend’s gaze. “I will. Be careful, that is. But I don’t think he wants to kill me. Maybe shoot me with a few rubber bullets but other than that I think we’re good.”

“And get some damn sleep,” Conner laughed as he shook his head in exasperation.

“Nope, you just used your one free make Red Robin promise something card,” Tim smirked as his friend continued laughing.

“Nerd.”

“Jock.”

“Workaholic.”

“Test-tube baby.”

“Low blow, Red,” Conner grinned because his friend was and Conner no doubt took that to mean that his job here was done. “Now, I should probably get out of here so you can get back to work.”

Tim could work even with Conner being there, he could work in the middle of a battlefield, they both knew that, but if it made the superhuman feel better about going back home then Tim was fine with the excuse. It didn’t hurt anyone.

“Be safe,” he called as his friend walked towards the door only to turn back and scoff at the Red Robin.

“I am practically indestructible,” was the reply he got to which he couldn’t help but call back to him.

“That’s still not completely indestructible,” he said, still smiling as Conner walked out the door, leaving Tim alone with his thoughts once more.

He got a lot of work done in the hour it took for Dick to return with the pizzas. The Tower’s security was at the very least up and running again and both the team and a scan of the building confirmed no threats or intruders. As far as he’d heard, the Justice League had rounded up the tech thieves and were currently combing through the base in search of explosives; they’d already found the majority of it.

The pizzeria must’ve gotten quite the shock, Tim mused when he saw Dick in his full Nightwing get up, carrying about 20 boxes of pizza. He knew why Dick had opted to go there instead of just ordering delivery. With the Tower’s security having been well, non-existent for a while, it wasn’t a good idea to get delivery guys to drop by. At least the tech thieves hadn’t realised they’d hacked the Teen Titans’ Headquarters, Tim had checked and subsequently erased all evidence before Roy had activated the alarm.

“Did you order every pizza on the menu?” Tim asked as Dick placed the boxes on the kitchen counter. He didn’t need to look up to know that his brother was giving him A Look.

“You know how much these guys eat,” was the deadpan reply that Tim got. “Come and get yours while it’s still here.”

“I’ll be there in a moment…” Tim said distractedly as he narrowed his eyes at a line of code.

“No you won’t. Eat now, you can work on that later,” Dick told him. Tim was about to protest, to say that he just had to finish up, only to stop at the glare Dick was giving him. “I had to use the scanner to get in so you obviously got the security back up. You can take a break, kiddo.”

He paused, just looking at Dick. Sure, he _could_ in theory take a break but all he really needed to do was double check the work he’d already done, improve cyber security, and then triple check the entire system to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. But then Dick held out the box of pizza with that knowing look. Well, Tim did say he wanted pizza, and he _guessed_ that he was hungry.

A moment later, they were both sitting on the couch, joined briefly by the rest of the Titans as they grabbed their pizzas and went on with their night. They’d all been patrolling various parts of the city, making sure that nothing was missed due to the Tower’s main computer being down.

“So, how long until you’re done here?” Dick asked between a bite of pizza, looking like he was already one with the couch. Wait, was he planning on sticking around until Tim had finished up? Because in that case Dick was probably gonna end up asleep on said couch.

“Don’t know. Have to make sure no one will be able to crack the system again,” Tim shrugged, taking his last slice of pizza and pushed himself to his feet again. “Why?”

“Just wanted to know how long I’m gonna be waiting around for, kiddo,” Dick said, confirming Tim’s suspicions.

“Or, you could go home. I have a room here, you know,” Tim remarked calmly because it was true. He did have a room at the Tower. Sure, he rarely ever used it but that was another matter entirely.

“Yeah, you’re gonna wanna be in Gotham tomorrow, unless you want B to yell at you in front of your team,” Dick said casually which Tim could only take to mean one thing: he knew. And apparently Bruce did too. “Seriously, Timmers, did you think you could hide something like that from him?”

“No, just thought it would take a bit longer for you to tell him,” Tim shrugged while going back to work. It wasn’t a big deal, not really. Wouldn’t be the first time Bruce yelled at him for doing something he decidedly did not approve of. Apparently, collaborating with his undead brother was one of those things. Again, not a surprise.

Dick, however, seemed very taken aback as he guiltily bit his lip. “I had to tell him.”

He really didn’t. He could’ve stayed quiet like Tim had opted to. Really, he should’ve stayed quiet instead of sticking his nose into something that was most definitely not his business but Tim didn’t want to start another fight so he shrugged again, barely even glancing at his brother. “Sure.”

“Tim…” Dick started saying and that was the exact moment that Tim stopped listening because that was Dick’s ‘I am going to start telling you about all you are doing wrong in your life to somehow force you to make the decisions I would’ve made even though I know you won’t actually listen to me’ tone. Tim had learned to tune that out years ago and the work in front of him, although horribly repetitive, was a great distraction and very much better than listening to that spiel.

It took approximately 5 hours before Tim was satisfied with his work. 5 hours that Dick had spent either nagging whenever Tim refilled his coffee cup, or playing on his phone in order to actually stay awake. They gathered their things in silence, Tim finally putting on his mask again, and made their way to the teleporter. They would teleport to the Batcave and then, presumably go their separate ways.

“Hey, Dick,” Tim started, the lift they were in slowly making its descent. “Thanks.”

“What for, Timbo?” Dick smiled, leaning on one of the walls. He looked exhausted and for all that Tim disliked his older brother’s nagging he still felt bad for keeping him up this long.

“I didn’t need you to come here, but you didn’t know that. So, I guess I… appreciate you going out of your way to make sure I was alright,” Tim said, glancing at Dick who was just smiling at him in that oddly _melancholic_ way. He very well could've been kidnapped. In a way, it was nice to know for sure that Dick would react like that.

“You’re my baby brother, of course I was worried,” Dick said, wrapping an arm around Tim’s shoulders and hugging him to his side, a gesture that had Tim going as stiff as a board. At least for a moment, then he forced himself to relax. It was Dick, after all. Dick hugged people. And it was nice. “Now, let’s get back to the Cave so we can sneak you out of there before B sees us and throws a fit.”

Tim nodded, a slight smile of his own as he finally allowed the lack of sleep to catch up with him, leaning further into Dick’s one-armed hug. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan.”

The plan went to shit. Tim cursed himself for not thinking up a backup plan because Bruce was very much standing in the Batcave, waiting for them. He should’ve seen this coming considering that you needed permission _from_ the Cave to transport _to_ the teleporter there. It’d been Dick who’d typed in the access code requesting transport which was exactly why Tim hadn’t thought about it. Not that he blamed his brother for it, Dick had probably hoped that it was Alfred who’d approved. Tim wished it’d been Alfred standing there, instead he got a scowling Bruce Wayne.

“ _What_ were you _thinking_?” Bruce asked immediately, his eyes clearly conveying anger and… disappointment. That’s what hit Tim the hardest. He’d _disappointed_ Bruce, again.

“B, the kid’s exhausted. Can’t you yell at him tomorrow? After he’s gotten a few hours of sleep?” Dick asked, immediately jumping to his brother’s defence, despite the fact that he was the one who’d sold him out in the first place.

But no matter how well meant the concern was, it wouldn’t help the situation so Tim schooled his expression into well-practised apathy and stood just a little taller, a little more carefree. “It’s fine, Dick. I was _thinking_ that it’s my duty to help people who need it.”

“You recklessly teamed up with a group of known criminals,” Bruce continued harshly, doing his very best to utilise his much bigger frame in an attempt to intimidate the Red Robin. He just forgot that this was Tim Drake, someone that he had trained to face insane, super-powered criminals, and Tim was not afraid of Batman. “One of them being the very man who attempted to _kill_ you.”

Because he was affected by the Lazarus Pit which Bruce knew. And from the looks of it, the Outlaws weren’t killing criminals anymore, something that Tim was willing to bet at least half his fortune that Bruce already knew. Telling him would be pointless exactly because Bruce knew and had decided to condemn the group anyways. So Tim stared at a fixed point above Bruce’s shoulder and listened with half an ear to how reckless he’d been and that he should’ve known better.

A good fifteen minutes later, Bruce had run out of steam, thinking that he’d gotten his point through because Tim was humming and nodding at the exact right moments. Of course, they both knew that Tim didn’t agree and Tim let Bruce think that he was actually understanding the older man’s point despite it being illogical and generally flawed, at least in Tim’s opinion. Lot’s of vigilantes had started out killing people, the Arrow being one of them and he hadn’t even been under mind control.

“Can I go now? I have some reports I need to get to Wayne Enterprises before the deadline tomorrow afternoon,” Tim said, his voice calm and collected. Not once had he looked away from the spot above Bruce’s shoulder. Although the deadline for the reports were more likely later that day; he hadn’t checked the time in a good while.

“I’ll drop you off at your apartment. I need to go that way anyways,” Dick chimed in and quickly grabbed Tim’s arm, practically dragging him along to his car. Before Tim could even think to protest he was already in the car and Dick was flooring the speeder.

“My apartment isn’t on your usual route,” Tim finally said, glancing at Dick.

“Didn’t say _I_ was going home. And anyways, if I let you leave on your own you’d just start working the second you got home,” Dick said easily. Well, Tim couldn’t say much against that. It was a very likely scenario. “You’re dead on your feet, kiddo. You need to sleep.”

“I will,” Tim sighed reluctantly. He’d get a few hours of sleep once he got home and then he’d catch up on the work he couldn’t do due to the situation at the Tower. It’d be fine. He had time for both. And if not then he’d just have to make time. And well, another glance at his brother told him that his answer had made Dick happy, or at the very least relieved, so that was good.

Dick dropped him off a few blocks from his apartment and Tim instantly took to the roof tops. His was a penthouse after all. But he did notice Nightwing’s car following from a distance. Tim couldn’t help but shake his head at that, a small smile on his lips. Such a worrywart. Then again, it was all Tim could do to stow his costume away before collapsing in his bed. He was out within seconds.

Three weeks. It took three weeks before Tim dared to start bringing his vigilante work into the Batcave again. During that time he’d been working from his apartment, accessing the Bat Computer remotely but the information he could access remotely was limited considering the fact that he didn’t want to draw undue attention to his program. If it were discovered, he didn’t know by whom he’d like it least, Batman or one of the many villains running around Gotham. Although in all fairness, Bruce probably already knew.

It wasn’t that he was scared of the Cave, not at all. He just didn’t appreciate Bruce still frowning ever so slightly when he saw him, nor did he care for Damian’s taunting. So he did what he always had when faced with an uncomfortable situation: avoided it by pretending it wasn’t there. Sure, he dropped by to see Alfred. And Dick whenever the older didn’t have his hand full with the child. But otherwise he spent his time working and patrolling.

It was during on of these patrols that he caught a hint of red out the corner of his eyes and, letting his curiosity take over, followed it only to find the last person he’d expected to see in Gotham, sitting on the ledge of a roof top.

Now, Tim’s gut told him to turn around and pretend he hadn’t seen anything, especially considering the last encounter he’d had with the man, but on the other hand… Why was he in Gotham? Were Roy and Kori with him? And if not, did they know he was here? Tim’s gut feeling was fighting a losing battle, and so he muted his comms before promptly taking a seat next to Red Hood whose helmeted face turned sharply to allegedly glare at him.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Tim said quietly, question disguised as an innocent statement.

“Yeah well, it’s a free country. And I was here first,” Red Hood, Jason, said curtly. Whether he was referring to being on the roof or in Gotham first Tim didn’t know but both were correct statements. “And before you ask, no, those two idiots aren’t with me.”

He sounded… bitter. Maybe something had happened between them? Tim hoped not, the three vigilantes had seemed to be good friends. It wasn’t his business to pry though, so he held his tongue, opting to sit quietly next to Hood, both of them watching the streets below.

“Does-” Hood started only to cut himself off, the question rather obvious from Tim’s perspective because only one subject had made Hood tense up that much during their mission.

“The bats know?” Tim finished his question, feeling just a bit gleeful when Hood grumbled assent. “As far as I know, I’m the only bat who knows. But I wouldn’t but it past Batman to hide information from me, especially regarding you after everyone was convinced you guys kidnapped me.”

“Like you wouldn’t have hacked his files,” Hood scoffed only to pause slightly. “Wait, they think we kidnapped you?”

“I did, which is why I can tell you for sure that no one knows you’re in Gotham. And yeah, they do despite the fact that I keep telling them otherwise,” Tim said, the last bit coming out a bit more bitterly than intended. Seriously, how many times did he have to tell Conner and Dick that he wasn’t coerced into going with the Outlaws? It was getting ridiculous.

“That’s stupid,” Hood said and Tim could practically hear the deadpan in his voice. And then it was like Hood remembered himself, slamming up a mental wall between them. “Why are you here, Replacement?”

“Don’t know, enjoying the view I guess,” Tim shrugged, leaning against one of the gargoyles, away from Hood.

“Yeah well, I got places to be,” Hood said harshly, jumping to his feet, took off, and, with the help of his grappling hook, hit the next roof running.

Tim’s eyes followed his figure until he was gone, not making any move to get up himself. He didn’t need to, having finished his patrol hours ago and for once he was ahead with the workload at his day-job. Maybe he should run his patrol again, he had the time to.

“ _I need backup at Rowan Street,_ ” Dick’s voice sounded over his comms, effectively forcing Tim to his feet.

“I’ll be there in 10,” Tim replied as he turned on his comms once more, already on the move.

Over the course of a week, Tim kept catching glimpses of Red Hood during his patrols which probably had a lot to do with Tim having slowly but surely taken over patrol routes covering most of the East End area, the most crime-ridden part of Gotham. Sure, Batman and Nightwing diverted from their own patrol routes occasionally but so far Tim, as Red Robin, had it handled. And lately it’d been much more quiet which no doubt had everything to do with Red Hood being in Gotham.

It was during one of these patrols that Red Hood got the drop on him. Tim blamed it on the fact that he’d been too focused on shadowing a group of people clearly belonging to one of the gangs, just in case they did do something illegal. He hadn’t even heard the other vigilante but he sure did hear the gun being cocked as well as sense the presence of it behind him. Various scenarios immediately started running through his head. Couldn’t be a thug, he would’ve heard them. The only ones who could’ve snuck up on him with that much success were people who’d been trained for it, and knew what Tim would notice. So, that left two possibilities, a very good assassin or someone with the same training as him and he hadn’t recently done anything to warrant assassins gunning for his head, not to mention an assassin would’ve pulled the trigger already. Therefore, the most logical answer was also the safest. That was why he’d muted his comms.

“Even if those are just rubber bullets you’d probably kill me if you chose to pull the trigger right now,” Tim said, not turning around because that would most likely aggravate the situation.

“Are you following me?” sounded Hood’s voice behind him, confirming Tim’s theory.

“No,” Tim replied honestly. He had in fact not been following Jason. Although he fully expected the next words from the gun-happy vigilante’s mouth.

“Bullshit, Replacement, you’ve been everywhere since you found out I’m back in Gotham,” Hood growled impatiently.

“This is part of my normal patrol route,” Tim explained calmly, not moving a muscle because he really did not want a head injury that night.

“Yeah, not anymore. East End is mine, you stay the fuck out of it,” Hood demanded, finally lowering his pistol. Tim turned around the second he was no longer at gunpoint to see Hood holstering the offending weapon as he slowly made his way back to where he’d come from. Or he would’ve if Tim hadn’t spoken up.

“Are you?”

Hood turned around, slowly, his posture giving away his confusion. That and his tone. “Am I what?”

“Back in Gotham? And for how long?” Tim asked curiously, holding his ground even when Hood’s entire posture froze, a hand barely stopping itself from going for his gun.

“What’s it to you? Gonna run back to Bats and tell on me?” Hood taunted, an air of menace around him spelling out exactly what would happen if Tim did that. Not that Tim believed the act enough to fear for his life.

“If I was gonna tell on you I would’ve done it already,” Tim scoffed, crossing his arms in pure defiance because Hood should’ve figured that out by now. “I don’t know about you but I don’t see him around.”

“Then what? Why the fuck do you wanna know?” Hood asked all the while still looking like he was seconds away from going for Tim’s throat.

“Cause if I’m going to ‘stay the fuck out’ of East End then I need to know for how long. I’m not going to let this place go directly back to the gutter just because you chose to disappear again,” Tim explained. It was the logical approach to this problem but apparently not the one Hood was expecting. “East End’s a hot spot for crime, everyone knows that. If you want to take over then be my guest, gives me more time to work on shit for my day-job as well as solve a few strange things that’s been bothering me about the other areas I patrol. Just tell me when I need to take over again.”

“In my defence I didn’t _just_ disappear, I was thrown in Blackgate, then Arkham,” Hood told him casually. He’d also broken out of both those places.

“Please tell me you’re not planning on going back to being a mob boss,” Tim deadpanned because if that was the case he just might tell Bruce. Yeah, it’d been effective, Hood’s turf had been free of the normal crimes you’d encounter on an evening stroll in Gotham but it’d also been beyond brutal.

Hood actually laughed at that, just a tiny back of laughter that he’d probably tried to stop. Amusement was still obvious in his voice though. “Nah, organised crime didn’t seem to pan out so well for me. Too many oddly intricate and just plain weird mind games. It was exhausting.”

“Then we’re good,” Tim nodded, offering the older vigilante a small smile. Jason, Hood, shifted his weight on his feet. A nervous habit?

“So you’re gonna let me take over just like that? No protests? Arguments? Death threats? I just gotta tell you when I leave town so you can tag in?” Hood questioned Tim who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, that about sums it up. But I only patrol a little over half of East End so you’ll still have to stay out of sight if you wanna keep laying low,” Tim shrugged only to then list of the parts that he’d been patrolling so far. In his head, he was already planning out how to get the rest of East End added to his list of patrol areas. It couldn’t be all at once, Bruce and Dick would never allow that considering how they already thought he was overworking himself. So it would have to happen gradually. A gradual takeover of the East End patrol routes. They’d never know what hit them.

“You… really haven’t told them, have you?” Hood spoke, the mixture of disbelief and confusion evident in his tone.

“You obviously don’t want them to know,” Tim replied. Really, Bruce and Dick knowing would only cause more trouble than it was worth. Alfred though… Tim should find a way to bring up Alfred to Jason, convince him to consider talking at least to the old man and letting him know he was okay. Or as okay as he could be given the circumstances. Not now, of course, but at some point when he knew Jason wouldn’t outright bolt a few words into that conversation.

Hood seemed to consider that for a while, clearly reaching some conclusion if the heavy breath of air he breathed out was any indication. “You’re a strange kid, Red.”

And with that said, he turned around and took his leave, probably a little later than he’d intended to. Tim, however, watched him go, noticing the direction.

“Not a kid but sure,” Tim muttered under his breath, flashing a brief smile because he was starting to see a pattern. One that Red Hood most likely didn’t want him to see. Huh, well that was interesting.

Maybe Tim shouldn’t have decided to make sense of the pattern. Common sense would be not to do it but common sense would also be not to dress up in heavily armoured costumes and fight crime. So Tim settled down with a map of Gotham and got to work.

That was how he, a few days later, found himself carefully disarming a series of booby-traps on a terrace door on the very top floor of a building in the vicinity of Crime Alley. He had worked out the pattern within a few hours, narrowing down the location to a few select possibilities, the one he was currently breaking into being the most likely. The reason for the delay was his internal debate about whether or not he _should_ do it because he without a doubt _could._ The past few days had been spent weighing the pros and cons, everything that could go wrong if he went through with it, in the back of his mind. Yet again, Tim’s curiosity had won out.

The apartment was… not what he’d expected. For one, it had little to no furniture, the only pieces being a rickety table and a broken mattress in the bedroom, which he respectfully did not enter. Other than that, it was a nice apartment. The kitchen area looked like it would be nice too with a little work and upgrades.

“How the _fuck_ did you find this place, Replacement?” a tense voice sounded from the terrace door. Tim turned around glad to see that Hood at least hadn’t drawn his pistols yet. The other vigilante looked livid though. “Don’t tell me Roy sold me out cause I really will end his life.”

“No one told me. From seeing you around, I noticed a pattern concerning the areas you frequented and which direction you went more often than not. After that it was a question of time frames and which area you were most likely to have bought an apartment in,” Tim clarified, not able to keep the smugness out of his voice because he had worked this out on his own.

“That’s… I don’t know if I’m horrified or impressed,” Jason said, moving further into his own apartment while taking off his helmet, placing it on the rickety table. Now, with only a domino mask concealing Jason’s identity, Tim immediately noticed how tired he looked. Surprisingly, he didn’t look angry to find Tim in his apartment. Annoyed? Sure. Uncomfortable with this whole situation? Most definitely. But not angry. “I’m not gonna get rid of you now, am I?”

“Nope,” Tim replied easily because Jason was giving up on trying to avoid him. And he’d just taken off his helmet, taken off his first line of defence.

Or maybe he’d done it so Tim could see Jason scowling at him. “If you tell anyone where this place is I _will_ murder you.”

“Get yourself some actual furniture in here and I won’t tell a soul,” Tim smirked, leaning against Jason’s kitchen counter because it was either that, the wall, or the rickety table, the first being closest and Tim did not wanna risk the last one.

Jason just looked at him, an indecipherable look on his face as if he needed to actual play the words back inside his head. Okay, Tim realised that it was an odd request but from what he’d gathered about Jason so far, the older wouldn’t believe him if he just told him that he would be quiet. Up until now, Tim had had to prove that point, which was only to be expected, Jason didn’t trust him. And that was exactly the reason why Tim chose to make it a barter. They’d both win that way. With the transaction, Jason would feel sure of Tim’s intent to stay quiet about Jason’s apartment, not to mention live much more comfortably, and Tim would’ve established just that tiny bit of trust that meant Jason wouldn’t just pack up and settle down in one of his safe-houses. Not to mention that Tim had every intention of dropping by Jason’s apartment again.

“Fine, deal, just get out of here, Red,” Jason agreed, faster than Tim had anticipated which was exactly why Tim narrowed his eyes and took his time to study the other vigilante, less focused on his expression. Jason was favouring his left side. His annoyance was to mask the fact that he was seconds away from grumbling in pain, hence why he was standing so close to the wall, just in case he needed support.

“You’re injured,” Tim stated, any hints of his previous smugness gone because now he could see that Jason was bleeding. Suddenly, how tired Jason seemed made a lot of sense.

“I’m fine. Get out, Replacement,” Jason growled, swaying ever so slightly on his feet. Sure, he was putting up a good front, one that had fooled Tim at once but did not fool him now that he was aware there was an actual problem.

“Where do you keep your first aid kit?” Tim continued, turning around to survey the apartment critically in search of the first aid kit. Bathroom maybe?

He did anticipate Jason’s next move, skillfully dodging under the fist aimed at his face, making sure not to actually touch Jason for fear of further aggravating the injury. And really, if Jason hadn’t been injured, he probably would’ve been the one on the floor. As it was, Jason lost his balance, ending up on the floor where he just sorta sat down, dazed. “Just get out… I don’t want you here.”

“Don’t make me call your friends,” Tim just replied, briefly checking to make sure that Jason wasn’t at a critical point yet because the vigilante was now lying on the floor, an arm thrown over his eyes.

“Tim, get the fuck out. Last chance. I might not be able to hit you but I will shoot you and me not being at my best just means I won’t promise that I won’t shoot anything vital. So just leave. Leave me be,” Jason groaned, lying down having obviously disturbed his injury. He looked like he was in a great deal of pain, prompting Tim to start rummaging through the cupboards in the empty apartment. He did not find the medical supplies but he did find an almost empty bottle of whiskey. The other vigilante sighed heavily when he didn’t immediately hear Tim leaving. “Fine, okay, you aren’t leaving. Bathroom for pain meds. Bring me some. Wait, no, fuck it, bring me the bottle.”

Jason was reaching out a hand for the alcohol which Tim, without a word, handed over before going to search Jason’s dimly lit bathroom. Upon finding the supplies Jason had alluded to, Tim scoffed. The sorry excuse for a first aid kit barely got the essentials and definitely not enough to properly stop a bleeding. Not to mention, the ‘pain meds’ were just borderline shitty. Guess he was going to do this with the supplies at hand. So, in other words, his field medical kit mainly.

“What’s the extent of the injury?” Tim asked, crouching down by Jason. The whiskey bottle had already been rolled over to a nearby corner, empty.

“Got shot. Yesterday. Hit right shoulder. Couldn’t dig the bullet out,” Jason muttered, allowing Tim to roll him over and get the leather jacket off so he could actually see the damage. At this point Jason was being incredibly quiet.

“You still conscious?” Tim asked as he, with some difficulty, got the rest of the fabric away from the aggravated area, heading Jason’s warning that if he cut open the costume he would be shot. That meant Jason was now sitting shirtless on the floor.

“Yeah… jus’ do your thing already,” Jason mumbled dismissively.

Tim was meanwhile eyeing the shabbily bound bandage, although to be fair it’d probably been fine _before_ Jason had went out that night. But now it had gone loose, not at all catching the blood and puss dripping from the wound.

Jason hissed in pain as Tim disinfected the area. He also muttered something about not being drunk enough for this which Tim just rolled his eyes at, taping a clean bandage to the wound because there were no proper supplies in the apartment to deal with something like that. Seriously, a properly stocked first aid kit should’ve been the first thing Jason bought. Alfred would be very disappointed in him.

“Okay, so, I’m gonna be gone for a little bit,” Tim started as he got up, wincing when Jason immediately fell back on the floor while groaning in pain from how the movement pulled on his injury.

“Don’t come back,” Jason called after him, looking like he had no intention of moving off of the floor.

Tim went home and got the first aid kit that Alfred had snuck into his bathroom when he’d moved. It was still fully stocked due to Tim preferring to go to the Cave when he was hurt. Mostly because that put Alfred’s and Dick’s minds at ease.

Now, he didn’t mean to go into the liquor store while on his way back. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind but when he saw the 24-hour store he dropped down and entered, the first aid kit hidden in a bag slung over his shoulder. To say the store clerk was surprised would be an understatement. In fact, the poor lady just stared at him in surprise and awe because Red Robin was in the store she worked at.

Tim paused, taking in the rows upon rows of alcohol wondering what exactly he should buy that wouldn’t make Jason outright shoot him. Something Jason would accept and not just throw at a wall in spite.

“Do you have a really good whiskey?” Tim asked which led to him, after having taken a picture with the clerk because Alfred raised him to be a polite vigilante, leaving the store with a bottle of 18 year old, single malt whiskey and barely any cash on his person. No way would he use his card to pay. That shit could be traced back.

Upon entering the apartment once more, it was no surprise to find Jason in the exact same spot he’d left him. Well, at least that meant he hadn’t fucked up his shoulder more than it already had been, Tim thought with a sigh.

“I bring gifts,” Tim said, placing the bottle in front of a drowsy Jason’s face. “Sorry it’s not wrapped.”

Jason hauled himself up into a sitting position again, batting away Tim’s attempts to help him, as he grabbed onto the bottle of whiskey, studying it in confusion. There were no words of thanks or appreciation as Jason mutely opened the bottle and took a swig. Well, at least he didn’t shoot Tim, and he was drinking it. So Tim would take that as a victory.

“Drink up, this is gonna hurt,” Tim said casually as he sterilised the medical tweezers he’d found in his first aid kit.

“Yeah, yeah, jus’ do it already,” Jason muttered, taking another swig of the whiskey. Cursing when Tim dug out the bullet lodged in Jason’s shoulder. The wound had gotten infected, Tim noticed, the skin an angry red around the broken skin.

Tim was not a doctor. He usually wasn’t the one patching people up, preferring to leave that with Alfred or doctor Tompkins because they knew what they were doing. But he’d gotten shot enough times to know that infections were annoying and needed to be dealt with. Still, he methodically started stitching up the wound, knowing the technique because he had to. Bruce had demanded it. Just in case he needed to stitch himself up in a pinch.

“I gotta say,” Jason started, forcing the words out in between hisses of pain because he was getting sewn back up without anaesthesia, clutching his bottle of whiskey like a lifeline. “You got surprisingly good bedside manners, Babybird.”

“Thanks, I try,” Tim shot back effortlessly, not losing focus on his task.

Jason didn’t reply, just clutching his bottle of whiskey a little tighter. It was all Tim could do to pause every time Jason went for another swig of the alcohol. At least half the bottle was gone by the time Tim wrapped a clean bandage around Jason’s shoulder.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Tim said calmly, offering a hand to help Jason get off of the floor. The older vigilante looked at the hand for a bit, finally making up his mind to accept Tim’s offer. It would be lie if Tim didn’t say he was relieved that Jason accepted his help. Also, if he had to redo the bandage within seconds of binding it he would grab one of Jason’s pistol and shoot him with it.

Tim grimaced when he saw the sorry excuse for a bed Jason had pushed up against the wall furthest away from the window. It _had_ been a mattress once but to call it that now would be an insult to all mattresses. Sure, it was probably slightly better than the floor but not by much. So he fully understood Jason’s muttered curses as he helped him lie down. If Jason had thought Tim would leave after that he was sorely mistaken because while he did leave the bedroom it was only to return later with a plastic cup of water and a bottle of antibiotics.

“Don’t need that. I got this right here,” Jason said dismissively, patting the whiskey bottle standing next to his ‘mattress’. Yep, in Tim’s opinion Jason was most definitely drunk. That was probably for the best since the alcohol shut off, or at the very least dulled, his brain’s connection to pain receptors.

“It’s infected, considering _someone_ didn’t seek out medical attention when a bullet got lodged in their shoulder,” Tim frowned. At this point he didn’t know who he wanted to deal with the least: normal Jason who kept threatening to shoot him, or drunk Jason who did not listen to reason.

“Jus’ leave, I’ll be fine,” Jason slurred, shifting his focus to the ceiling when he failed to stare at Tim.

“I’ll leave. _After_ you take the antibiotics,” Tim bargained, getting a scowl from Jason. “If you want me to leave then take the damn meds.”

“Fuckin’ fine,” Jason muttered, finally taking the damn medicine although he did completely ignore the cup of water, choosing instead to down the pills with whiskey which Tim didn’t really think was a good idea but well, he was _already_ drunk. He’d never really bothered to look into the effects of mixing alcohol and medicine, only knowing, from what he’d been told by professionals, that it was a bad idea and he shouldn’t do it. It’d never really been a problem for him, considering that he’d only been drunk two times his entire life and none of those times had been when he was injured. Oh well, Jason would be fine.

Keeping true to his word, he did leave after Jason took the meds. He’d placed the cup of water next to the ‘mattress’ because he had tried to deal with hangovers before. Jason would thank him for it in the morning. Although his thanks would most likely be more of a ‘I’m not gonna shoot you right now’ kinda gratitude.

However, what Jason really ought to thank him for was leaving the first aid kit behind on the kitchen counter, along with a note telling Jason that it was his now as well as a reminder of their deal. He also scribbled his phone number just in case Jason felt a sudden overwhelming need to thank him, or, in a what would be a more likely scenario, yell insults at him for forcing a first aid kit on him. In any case he’d come back the next day.

And he did the next evening, bringing leftovers that Alfred had forced on him last time said butler had caught Tim on his way out of the manor. He’d known that Jason was alive courtesy of the text he got earlier that day telling him to go fuck himself. But to enter the apartment and find it nearly fully furnished had Tim taking a few deep breaths. Just to not immediately yell at the figure, in civilian clothing, sitting by the dining table said person now had.

“Please tell me you didn’t do all the heavy lifting yourself,” he sighed, moving further into the now… nicely decorated apartment. There was a red couch with a coffee table matching the dining table and dusty black, leather chairs, a bar in place of a breakfast bar with barstools.

“Like I’d willingly let anyone into my apartment,” Jason scoffed, glaring at Tim over the newspaper he’d been studying. “I didn’t pull any stitches if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It really wasn’t what he’d been worried about but Jason was probably best equipped to deal with that sort of worrying, at least from Tim. “Have you contacted Kori and Roy?”

“Fuck no. And if you breathe even a word about this to them I _will_ kill you, Replacement,” Jason growled angrily. Okay, something had most definitely happened between them. Tim’s curiosity burned to be satisfied but he reigned it in, knowing that if he tried to push Jason to share anymore than he wanted… well, Tim didn’t really feel like being pushed off a balcony today. Not to mention the struggle that would entail _would_ fuck up the stitches. “Why are you even here? To make sure I’m keeping my end of the bargain?”

“Nope, brought food,” Tim said, holding up the bag he’d thrown Alfred’s tupperware into. He continued his case before Jason could completely dismiss it. “It’s Alfred’s cooking.”

No one, not even Jason, could say no to Alfred’s cooking. Sure, Alfred might not know that Jason was in Gotham or that Tim would bring Jason leftovers of Alfred’s cooking, but Tim was sure Jason missed it. He had to. Tim knew that he’d miss Alfred’s cooking if he had to go years without it.

“Fine, give it here,” Jason muttered, pushing himself out of the chair and holding out a hand for the plastic bag. Tim gladly handed it over since that meant he could get on with his evening that much faster. He still had some patrolling to do.

After that, Tim had every intention of leaving Jason alone. With how adamantly the other had been about getting him out of Jason’s space the night before, Tim didn’t imagine that evening to be any different. He’d checked up on Jason like he’d told himself he would, brought him good food as well, so there was nothing more to get out of staying, other than a bullet wound of his own.

“You eaten yet?” Jason’s voice sounded suddenly, stopping him mid-step. Was that…? Did Jason just…? Tim apparently must’ve taken too long to answer because the next moment Jason was looking at him. “It’s a simple yes or no question, kid. Have you eaten yet?”

“No?” Tim said cautiously, too taken aback to actually lie about it like he would’ve done had Dick or Alfred asked.

“Then sit your ass down,” Jason ordered, pointing to one of the barstools by the breakfast/actual bar. Tim followed the order mutely, too surprised to think up a snarky comeback because Jason was for once not telling him to leave him alone. That was a miracle in itself.

It was sort of fascinating watching Jason cook, even if it was just reheating leftovers, without a microwave. He clearly knew his way around a kitchen but from what Alfred had told Tim about Jason that should hardly be a surprise. It’d always been nice to listen to Alfred’s various stories about whatever his older brothers had gotten up to, which was why Tim knew for a fact that Jason had helped Alfred in the kitchen. And well, talking about Jason like that had helped Alfred deal with the grief of losing him. So Tim had only been happy to indulge the old man.

“Tonight,” Jason said, glancing over his shoulder at Tim who immediately snapped out of his thoughts. “You get to patrol East End like you’ve done for tonight and then I’ll take over again tomorrow night. Understood?”

“Sure,” Tim shrugged effortlessly. He really didn’t mind all that much. And well, he wasn’t exactly one to tell others to stay in bed considering his track record of doing exactly the opposite of that whenever injured.

And well, if he dropped by again the next evening to check up on Jason, it really wasn’t anyone’s business. Neither was it that he just… kept dropping by at random times although mainly times when there was a chance of Jason getting up and cooking something. Tim’s previous assessment of Jason’s skill in the kitchen had been correct because that food was a close second to Alfred’s.

Sure, the first time he entered the apartment through the front door, in civilian clothes, and what was obviously a computer bag slung over his shoulder, Jason stared questioningly. That was understandable, considering that it was a little after noon and Jason had been in the process of cleaning his pistols at the dining table.

“Sure, come right in, make yourself at home,” Jason muttered sarcastically, going back to his work while Tim went to the couch and set his computer up. Tim was pretty sure that Jason could tell how exhausted he was but it took a while before the older finally spoke up. “Okay, seriously, why are you here, Babybird?”

“Dick wouldn’t leave me alone and I have a deadline at work effective in a few hours,” Tim explained, not taking his eyes off the screen.

“Shouldn’t you be doing your work at the office?” Jason asked, turning around in his chair so he could properly scrutinise Tim. At least that’s what he got from the look Jason was sending him.

“Where do you think I was before? Security wouldn’t escort him out despite him clearly disturbing my work,” Tim muttered maybe a tad harsher than he’d intended to. “And don’t worry, he didn’t follow me, I made sure of that.”

“What, did you slash his tires or something?” Jason asked in jest.

“Yes.”

Jason paused at that, presumably to take in what Tim had just admitted to because that was exactly what he’d done. Sure, Dick was most likely cursing his name but he’d gotten away and stashed his own bike somewhere Dick wouldn’t think to check. And it’d been just the slightest bit satisfying to slash Dick’s tires. The guy had been practically hounding Tim for the last week, obsessed with finding out exactly what Tim was hiding.

The fact that Jason let out a loud laugh when he finally did fully comprehend Tim’s admitting to the crime well, that was just a bonus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism in regards to grammar, pacing, and the like is appreciated. Please drop a Kudos if you like the story :)


	4. Dick Grayson

Something was wrong. Or maybe wrong was too strong a word, Dick mused from his side of the dinner table. Something was _different_. With Tim. He was acting strange, had been acting strange since… No, that couldn’t possibly be it. But what if…? Dick narrowed his eyes at his sleep deprived brother who had most likely been trying his best to ignore Dick’s staring.

“I give. What’s on your mind?” Tim finally sighed, putting his fork down. He always did that when mentally preparing for some kind of long and very complex conversation that usually turned into an argument. Well that was awfully suspicious.

“Nothing, what’s on _your_ mind?” Dick parroted back, studying his brother’s expression as if he could read his mind. If only it were that easy.

“Work. Wayne Enterprise got that big launch coming up,” Tim shrugged nonchalantly, telling Dick something that he already knew. There’d been a press conference about it the day before which he knew Tim had attended because Dick had been on the police detail for the event. Sure, it’d been a bit below his pay-grade and he’d had to go out of his way but he’d wanted to make sure nothing happened. That’s also why he’d decided to put in a request to transfer from Blüdhaven to Gotham PD, after all, Damian needed him, not that the kid would ever say as much which was fine because he didn’t have to. Dick remembered all to well what it was like being raised by Bruce, and Alfred. Alfred had actually done most of the whole raising thing now that he thought about it…

Wait. That wasn’t what he was supposed to find out. Damian was doing fine right now. No, currently Dick’s concern was Tim. Curse him for being so good at avoiding questions.

“Tim, are you sure that’s all that’s on your mind?” Dick prodded cautiously because knowing his brother he would get up and leave anytime now.

“Please don’t tell me the two of you are going to talk about your emotions,” a sneer sounded from the end of the table where Damian was sitting. When did he even get there? Okay, Dick would admit that he _might_ have been a little too preoccupied with trying to stare into Tim’s brain.

“Little D, there’s nothing wrong with being open about your emotions, right Tim?” Dick smiled cheerfully, glancing at the older of his two younger brothers. There was a slight threat in Dick’s eyes, daring Tim to reply in any other way than the one he wanted.

“No comment,” Tim muttered, back to busying himself with the food on his plate. Okay so he was absolutely no help.

Dick couldn’t help but frown. Why couldn’t the two of them just get along? Was one civil, brotherly conversation too much to ask for? Well yeah, probably. At least they were in the same room though. Baby steps, Dick thought, baby steps. “That might work at press conferences but not in this manor!”

“Not like any of us would even want to hear Drake’s perspective of this,” Damian scoffed before picking up his plate and leaving the room, his dog, Titus, hot on his trail.

“He doesn’t mean it like that,” Dick hurried to assure Tim who just raised an eyebrow in question. Okay, so maybe Damian _did_ mean it like that but Dick didn’t want Tim to take it like that. “ _I’d_ wanna hear your perspective.”

Dick really should’ve seen it coming because suddenly his brother was smirking that overly satisfied smirk of his, like he’d just cracked a difficult code. “No comment.”

Or like Dick had set himself up for the same nonsense reply twice. At least now he _knew_ Tim was just messing with him. And he was still avoiding the initial question. Dick would be damned if he was about to let his brother distract him one more time that night. Or morning. Was it starting to be morning? They’d all returned pretty late from patrol.

“Tim, I know something’s up with you. It’s not the launch, you don’t worry over that kind of stuff,” Dick pushed again, staring intently at Tim, watching the other’s smirk turn back into that damned stoic mask.

Tim breathed out heavily to cover a yawn. He might’ve thought he was being smart about it but Dick had long since learned Tim’s small tricks to hide shit like that. Damn that kid for not wanting people to worry about him. People worried! That’s what good people were supposed to do. Worry about their siblings because they forget to take care of themselves.

“Kiddo, something’s on your mind. Just talk to me,” Dick continued when he still didn’t get a reply.

“Dick, I’m fine, honestly,” Tim replied, rolling his eyes as if Dick was the one acting strangely. Okay, maybe he was being a bit too forceful in his questioning. This was only confirmed when Tim got up, gathered his empty plate, and headed towards the kitchen, leaving Dick to sit at the table by himself.

Sadly, many of the family dinners at the Wayne Manor ended that way. Usually it was just Dick and Damian occasionally joined by Tim, Babs, Steph, and Cass. Bruce almost never joined them, only appeared briefly to load up his plate before he’d disappear either down to the Cave, in which case Damian would finish eating at lightning speed to go spar with his father, or his office, the one room that none of them, Alfred being the exception, dared to enter without either an invitation or news that required Bruce’s immediate attention. Today Bruce had gone to the latter of the two. And the girls had been busy with their own lives.

Well, Dick sighed, pushing himself off his chair while listening to the muted voices of Tim and Alfred coming from the kitchen. At least one of his younger siblings had learned manners when it came to thanking the cook for the food.

He picked up his own plate and went to join them, not at all finding it suspicious that Tim left rather hurriedly the second Dick entered the kitchen. Yeah, no, he was definitely hiding something and Dick would not rest until he’d-

“Master Richard,” Alfred’s calm voice interrupted his train of thought, causing him to look up at the butler in slight surprise because that was not the tone he usually used when calling for any of the members of the batfamily.

Dick tried not to frown as he placed his plate by the sink. “Yeah?”

“You shouldn’t keep pushing the boy,” Alfred said in that ever so patiently logical way of his as he busied himself with making tea. “He will talk when he feels the need to.”

“But he’s hiding something, Alfred. It might be…” Dick started, snatching one of the cookies from the plate Alfred was readying. Or tried to. All he really got was a slap on the wrist.

“Those are for later, sir,” Alfred warned him, making Dick raise his hands in mock surrender. After all, he was on Alfred’s territory. “And you should trust Master Timothy’s judgement. If it was dangerous he would have told someone. At least as a precaution.”

“So he hasn’t…” Dick trailed off, looking at Alfred expectantly because he was the most likely candidate for Tim to confide in. It wasn’t that Dick was bitter of that fact, the butler had practically raised all of them, Bruce included. Okay, he might’ve been a little bitter but that mostly stemmed out of hurt. Hurt that Tim had been increasingly distant ever since he took up the alias, Red Robin. Of course, Dick was pretty sure he knew why that was the case, which only made it that much worse.

“No, Master Timothy hasn’t told me anything out of the ordinary,” Alfred shook his head and while that should make Dick feel a slight bit more relieved since that meant it wasn’t serious, he couldn’t help the sneaking suspicion that Tim was hiding something really big. It was all in the subtle changes in his demeanour. Sure, Dick might not be the best of the bast at reading people but he knew his brothers and he knew that Tim was keeping a very big secret from the rest of them.

He also knew that Alfred was right. After all, Tim’s response to being lectured by Bruce had been to stay away from the manor for weeks. Sure, he’d answered whenever they called him and helped out with anything involving their night job but there’d been a strictly professional air about it. At this point, Dick was glad that Alfred had finally convinced Tim to come around the manor for dinner again.

“Alright. So we wait for him to come to us?” Dick asked, feeling suddenly tired. God, he needed a self-help book of some sort. ‘How to Get Your Genius Kid Brother to Share his Secrets with You’ or something along those lines. And while he was at it, he also needed a book telling him how to make his siblings get along because the discord between Tim and Damian wasn’t… healthy. Sure, it didn’t affect their teamwork in the field, which meant that Bruce didn’t really care, or was it that their adoptive father just hadn’t noticed?

“Quite so, Master Richard,” Alfred replied easily. At least Alfred knew. Alfred was trying, ever so subtly, to make things better between the two younger brothers. But really, there was only so much they could do as long as neither Tim nor Damian wanted to change their minds and actually try to get along.

“Right. I’m gonna go find Damian, make sure he’s alright,” Dick said. Because Damian didn’t have an apartment outfitted with the kind of high tech security that Dick needed hours and a great deal of luck to crack. If Tim didn’t want people in his apartment they didn’t get in and right now Dick sincerely doubted Tim wanted to be bothered. He could respect that. For now. There would be eventual bothering and maybe the use of the EMP jammer prototype Tim had been working on in the cave if the security system didn’t let him through.

Finding Damian wasn’t all that difficult, not with Bruce being holed up in the upstairs office. That meant the youngest Wayne would be either in the cave, taking out his frustrations about not being out patrolling out on a training dummy, spending quality bonding time with his many pets, or somewhere in the manor, drawing. The first clue as to Damian’s whereabouts was Titus lounging on a chaiselong in the main study, not to be confused with Bruce’s actual office. With the entrance to the Batcave being in the main study, it was a hotspot for traffic in the manor, which was not all that peaceful when you needed to get some actual work done.

So, taking the lift down, Dick wasn’t all that surprised to find Damian hurling batarangs at an unsuspecting training dummy. Dick also wasn’t surprised that Damian already knew he was there. “If you’re here to lecture me, you can save your breath.”

Dick sighed through his nose, wondering why his two genius brothers were such a pain in his ass.

“I wasn’t going to lecture you but now that you mentioned it, that comment earlier was uncalled for, Little D,” Dick replied gently, taking note of how the next batarang sunk deeper into the target than the ones before.

“I spoke the truth,” Damian told him, his tone short and very clearly annoyed. Yep, this was going just about how Dick had imagined it would. One day, Dick thought, he would have to teach Damian that the truth and an opinion weren’t the same thing. Today was not that day.

“Even if that was true, it’s not a very nice thing to say, Damian,” Dick sighed.

“Tch,” was the only response he got out of the younger Wayne. Again, hardly a surprise. Another batarang hit the target. Dick knew that Damian would continue like this the rest of the night if he was left on his own devices. Kind of ironic really, how similar he was to Tim in that regard. Whereas Tim would rather work than sleep, Damian would train.

Well not on Dick’s watch. It was a school night after all. Never mind that Damian hated the school he’d been enrolled in, he was going. It was a good way for him to interact with kids his own age. And really, it’d be a record for the Bat Family Dropouts if Damian quit now. Even Tim had waited until high school to drop out.

“Tell you what, Little D, how about we go for a quick spar,” Dick started, moving to the training mat as Damian’s eyes lit up. At least until Dick continued his sentence. “And then you head off to bed. Catch a few hours of sleep before going to school.”

And now Damian was crossing his arms, pursed lips at he thought it through. “I can sleep at that useless institution.”

“Kiddo, that’s not how school works…” Dick explained, exasperated with his baby brother’s reasoning. He could’ve sworn they’d had this conversation before.

“What could they possibly teach me that I do not already know, Grayson?” Damian asked a tad snottishly. See, if Tim had been here he would’ve been firing off answers to that question, Alfred too. Was it too late to call Alfred for back up? Yes. Yes it was. Damian would no doubt see that as a victory and just… not go to bed. Screw the other self help book, Dick needed the one about getting his damned genius brothers to get some actual fucking sleep for once in their damned lives.

“Social skills? If nothing else, see it as practise in blending in,” Dick offered because that was all he got. “And try to at least not get caught sleeping at school. Your teachers have called multiple times, sounding very concerned about your, and I quote, ‘academic career and home life’.”

Once more, Damian thought it through before finally nodding. “Very well. I suppose that is acceptable.”

“One spar and then off to bed, alright?” Dick grinned, looking at the kid who rolled his eyes as he took his spot on the mat.

“Those were the terms we agreed on,” Damian relented, his small frame instantly falling into a fighting stance.

Dick couldn’t help but grin because thank god he’d finally been able to wrangle the kiddo into going to bed at a reasonable hour. Or… reasonable by vigilante standards. It was way past a regular kid’s bedtime. It’d already been past that time when they’d headed out on patrol for the night. But you try preventing Damian from going out on patrol and see how that turned out because Dick was not about to be suffocated in his sleep. Okay, he didn’t think Damian would _really_ do that to him, despite the kid having no problem with killing. They were working on that.

Co-parenting was hard, Dick mused as he blocked and dealt a few hits. Even when the other one doing the parenting was Alfred.

* * *

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Dick asked, doing his damnedest to keep his voice level and calm despite the current frustration coursing through him. This was just typical.

The chief of police massaged his temples as if _Dick_ was giving _him_ a headache. “Detective Grayson, I already pulled a lot of strings to authorise your being on the security detail at the press conference. You belong to another city districts police and is technically here on vacation. My hands are tied on this.”

“And I understand that, completely, but at the last launch event my brother went to he was kidnapped, right in front of your security detail. I need to be there to keep an eye on him,” Dick explained calmly. No sense in losing his temper now. He needed to actually convince this man that it was worth the hassle. Although, in hindsight he probably shouldn’t bother this man so much when he was planning to transfer to GCPD’s detective branch. Well, too late now. Dick was committed.

“I like you, Grayson, I really do, but I can’t put you on the security detail. That I’ve done so once already was enough to raise not just a few eyebrows, twice and people are going to start asking questions. Especially considering the fact that you’re not employed at this precinct,” the chief explained carefully and Dick could see where he was coming from, he really could, but damn if it didn’t just piss him off.

Still, Dick was an adult. He could be told no without throwing a damn tantrum. Instead, he breathed out through his nose and quietly went over his other options. He could go as Nightwing but that would very much limit his ability to get in close and survey the crowd since he’d have to keep hidden. Sure, the Gotham police force was mostly okay with the vigilantes, considering that they weren’t public enemy number one, courtesy of one Mayor Gordon. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t wonder why Nightwing was there. Not to mention, the police chief was a smart man, which was both a blessing and a curse, and he might be able to connect the dots between telling Richard Grayson he couldn't be on the security detail and Nightwing showing up to do just that, security. It wouldn’t be proof, of course, but enough to make the man suspicious.

Another option was to just crash the party. He was a Wayne after all, the in-building security would let him in if he intimidated them enough. Still, that would of course get Bruce’s attention and he was kind of trying to avoid that, for Tim’s sake. However, if that was the only sort of reasonable option then that was what Dick would have to do. Better than getting the police chief suspicious.

“You know, Grayson, I understand that you’re worried about your brother; if it were my younger sibling getting frequently kidnapped I would be worried too,” the chief started compassionately when Dick had just stared emptively out in the room, frowning, for a few minutes. And here was where the guy told him to leave his office and go back to Blüdhaven, Dick thought, slightly annoyed at the fact that he wouldn’t really blame the chief for doing so. Also, ‘frequently kidnapped’ was an understatement, in Dick’s opinion. “So, let me cut you a deal.”

Wait… what? Had he heard that right? “A deal, sir?”

“Yes, a deal. I can’t officially let you join the security detail, but if you happened to be ‘hanging out’ with a few of the officers in charge of checking the cameras because you were… let’s say curious of how we operated those here in Gotham, well, that obviously would be very understandable. And if something were to happen and you rushed out to back up my men… it’d just be a good cop reacting as he should, even if he is on vacation,” the chief mused, looking a Dick with just a slight smile because they both knew Dick wasn’t gonna look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Ah, yes, of course, sure did always wonder how those things worked,” Dick played along, flashing his signature smile, the one he’d, long ago, copied from Bruce.

“We have an understanding then, Detective Grayson?” the chief asked, sounding almost relieved that Dick wasn’t going to start demanding being made an official member and really, Dick understood. Especially given the fact that he’d been rather pushy the last time he’d shown up at the chief’s office, wanting to be part of a security detail.

“I believe we do, sir,” Dick nodded, waiting for the chief to properly dismiss him before taking his leave. He might’ve just pestered the chief of police into letting him keep an eye on his brother at the launch event and he regretted nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Which was how, days later, Dick found himself holed up in a surveillance van, snacks at the ready, and with two of the tech specialists sitting on either side of him. They’d wasted no time after Dick’s arrival, immediately explaining the systems and how to operate them. They were so nice about it too, like they genuinely wanted him to know. Dick really didn’t have the heart to tell them that he already knew how to operate the system, had actually used a more advanced version multiple times. In the Batcave, which of course meant he couldn’t tell them. But damn if he hadn’t spent a lot of time going through different feeds, even helping out Oracle, whenever he’d been too badly wounded to go out as Nightwing, or Robin when he still wore that moniker.

So Dick listened and he feigned interest and surprise, making sure to ask the right questions that would make the two others go off on tangents that really allowed them to demonstrate their knowledge of the various systems. All that while Dick maintained the air of someone who barely knew anything at all.

The woman, Isobel, preferred the work behind the scenes to the actual field work. The man, Dean, seemed to much rather wanna be out there with the other officers. Not that he’d said as much, but Dick kept catching Dean staring at the security officers longingly. Or maybe he was just staring at one of the officers and Dick had totally misread the situation. That was also a possibility.

They gave Dick a few minutes to ‘learn’ the system, shifting through the feeds and listening in on the officers’ conversations, after letting them know that they were running a mic-check of course. Isobel wasn’t with the idea of some good old fashioned eavesdropping.

When the first guests started to arrive, Dick wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it all. There were faces he knew because this was Gotham’s high society and some of the very same people who got an invite whenever Bruce decided to throw a gala. Or fundraiser. Or just any social party function. But all in all it was just a lot of sitting around and staring at screens, which he’d already known when he and the chief made the deal but Dick had sort of forgotten how utterly soul-sucking it could be to work behind the scenes. How Barbara did it almost every night was beyond him and once more he was reminded of how much he appreciated her work. And her.

And then Tim arrived and Dick immediately focused on him as he walked from screen to screen. Well, he walked around normally but to Dick Tim was bouncing from screen to screen. And the more time went by without anything happening, the more Dick started to relax. Sure, he knew Tim could take care of himself but Dick would still rather avoid the younger being placed in a situation where he couldn’t in good conscience fight back because he was Tim Drake and people would ask questions if Tim Drake took out ten armed would-be kidnappers on his own.

“That’s your brother, right?” Isobel asked, gesturing to the kiddo who was refusing the alcohol offered to him. Good on you, Timbo, Dick thought proudly. No underage drinking at launch events.

“Yup! Timmy’s really been working his ass off for this launch thingy,” Dick told her all the while smiling proudly because that was his baby brother doing great and important things at his day job.

“Wait, ‘Timmy’? As in Tim, Timothy Drake, Bruce Wayne’s kid? You’re his brother?” Dean asked, almost spitting out the noddles he’d been quietly eating. And then it looked like realisation hit him square in the face. “I’m an idiot. You’re _the_ Richard Grayson.”

“Which other ‘Detective Grayson’ did you think he was?” Isobel asked, a raised eyebrow as she stared down a spluttering Dean, who’d wisely put his cup of noodles down.

“I don’t know? One that isn’t basically a celebrity?!” Dean continued, now openly staring at Dick as if he’d grown another head. Which he had not. Dick was kinda sure he would’ve known if he had. “Is it true that you grew up in a circus?”

Isobel let out a sigh of embarrassment for her co-worker. “You can just ignore him, Detective Grayson, no one would blame you.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Dick grinned easily. He was, after all, used to it. “And yeah, a good few years of my childhood I was part of the Haly’s circus. You might’ve heard about the Flying Graysons?”

Dean nodded enthusiastically which only prompted Dick to launch into a tale from his childhood, talking about the family that he’d always had and always would have in the circus. The young officer listened with rapt attention, much to Isobel’s exasperation. Still, Dick was pretty sure she was listening in too despite her attention being mostly on the screens. That was mostly because he caught her glancing at them every time his story reached an exciting point.

“I hate to interrupt, but we do have a job to do, gentlemen,” she reminded them gently before Dick could start another tale, this time about how he’d made detective so quickly.

“Right,” Dick nodded, giving Dean an apologetic smile before turning his attention towards the screens again. Sure, he was glad to be part of the security detail, at least in spirit, but dammit if this kind of work didn’t just suck his soul out. Dick wanted to be out there, patrolling the hallways and shadowing his brother which in turn would annoy said brother since Tim had an uncanny ability to tell whenever he was being shadowed. By his family. Or was it just Dick? He’d have to ask the others.

But anyways, he had a kinda job to do, not that he was getting paid, and so Dick dutifully started scanning the screens once more. Except, something was wrong. Something was very wrong. All at once, Dick got a very bad feeling.

“Where is Tim?” he asked, his voice deadly quiet because there were too many answers to that question and only one of them was good. The good answer was ‘there’ and that was not the one Dick got.

All at once, Isobel was scanning the screens in rapt attention before starting to play back some of the feed. Dick would’ve started on that the second he’d realised Tim wasn’t visible on the feeds but he still had to keep up the pretense of not knowing the system. “Fuck.”

It didn’t take long for Dick to realise why Isobel had cursed because the feed showed Tim going outside, in the cold, some time ago, in a place with basically no security. Because of course he fucking would. Seriously, Tim?! Dick thought as he grabbed his phone because it was like his idiotic, genius brother _wanted_ to be kidnapped.

Still, nothing was confirmed yet, Dick reminded himself as Isobel barked orders to the officers outside. Something or other about searching for Tim. Meanwhile, Dick called him. When Tim didn’t pick up, Dick called again. And again. And a fourth time for good measure. It was when he heard that stupid robotic voice tell him to leave a message after the bleep for the sixth time that he knew something was very wrong. Mostly because Tim knew that when Dick called this many times it was important. And then they got word back from the officers confirming Dick’s suspicions. Tim wasn’t there.

Dean and Isobel were talking to him, or trying to at least. Not that they had any success considering the fact that Dick just got up and left the trailer they’d been stuck in for the past four to five hours. At least he’d had the sense to leave the headset with the two others. Else the officers, who were all eyeing him warily like they didn’t quite know if they should approach him, would’ve gone after him.

On the off chance that Tim was just too deeply buried in work, or research, or a project, Dick checked Tim’s apartment first, finding it void of any Tim, his vigilante gear still there. Second, he went to the Batcave; Red Robin’s gear was, just as it had been at the apartment, _still there_. Which meant that now, Dick had resorted to systematically going through video from various cameras in the area close to where Tim had presumably gone to because dammit all he was gonna find his brother and then he was gonna yell at him a bit for letting himself get kidnapped. Again.

“Master Richard? I thought you were working tonight?” the concerned voice of Alfred called from the lift. For a brief moment, barely a second, Dick considered just politely telling the butler that something else had come up but… it was Alfred. _Alfred_. He deserved to know even if Dick wasn’t completely sure yet.

“I think we got a Code Drake,” Dick said, mildly frustrated that the citizens of Gotham all seemed to own cameras yet they put them in spots that somehow managed to never catch any of the illegal things happening, like, Tim being freaking kidnapped, _again_.

“His apartment?” Alfred asked, already pulling up a chair at the console next to the one Dick had claimed.

“Empty,” Dick replied, quickly catching Alfred up on what he’d found out so far. Wasn’t much else than a comprehensive list of places that Tim was not. The Tower hadn’t heard from him either.

“I shall contact Miss Gordon to enlist her aid in the search then,” Alfred nodded, already pulling up a secure line on a separate screen. Alfred had reacted just like Dick, mostly because nothing was a given yet and panicking didn’t help anyone. Were they both concerned? Yes. Worried? Most definitely. But both of them had done this too many times by now although Alfred probably had the most experience in that field. Having raised Bruce that was a given; kidnapping attempts on the billionaire orphan had probably been plenty.

None of them voiced the question of whether or not to involve Bruce in the search, not even Oracle when she chimed in, running searches of their own. All of them remembered the first time Tim got kidnapped, by the joker. It just wouldn’t make a difference if Bruce was there, helping them out because the billionaire wouldn't actually be any help at all. Bruce would make them panic, sending the entirety of Gotham’s vigilantes into high alert when they all knew Tim could obviously take care of himself. Heck, he’d escaped Joker. The only reason Tim _got_ kidnapped was that he let them.

Okay, sure, Dick could see the sense of that from a logical point of view because Tim Drake wasn’t supposed to be able to fight off, well, anyone. He was a computer geek, a genius high school dropout, and a workaholic. None of that suggested that he’d be a master in martial arts. So from a logical point of view, Dick understood. However, understanding didn’t mean agreeing and right now Dick just kinda wanted his brother safe and not kidnapped. And preferably said brother could stay that way for a few weeks this time.

“ _I think I got something_ ,” Barbara’s voice sounded from the speakers. “ _Sending it over now._ ”

A grainy video showing a figure, whose build looked similar to Tim’s, being forced into a van by three men. It was in situations like these that Dick had to just take a deep breath and ask higher powers why Tim hadn’t ‘publicly’ gone to a gym or something so he’d at least have an excuse for fighting off three guys. _Three_.

“I’m gonna go check out the place it happened,” Dick said, naturally putting in his comm as he moved from the Bat Computer and towards the case holding his suit. Sure, the quality of the video had left much to be desired but even if it wasn’t Tim it was still someone getting kidnapped and Dick wasn’t about to just ignore that. “Oracle, Agent A, please see if you can track the van’s movements. We need to know where it went.”

“ _It’s as good as done_ ,” Oracle replied, the sound of her very fast typing already coming through the comms. “ _We’ll find him, Nightwing._ ”

The unspoken ‘don’t worry’ didn’t pass Dick by and really, he wasn’t. If anyone could find out where that van went it’d be Barbara. No, what he was worried about was getting to whatever hideout the kidnappers held Tim too late. After all, accidents happened and Tim was still putting himself in a very vulnerable position by letting himself get kidnapped. But when Dick had suggested maybe getting Tim a bodyguard for his civilian self it had been shot down a little too efficiently. Kiddo had known he’d suggest it.

Maybe I should just hire one for him anyways, Dick mused as he jumped into his car. Or rather, Nightwing’s car. Well, it was still his car, the public just didn’t know that. And as for the bodyguard, well, it would be a fun way to annoy Tim. At least until Tim had found out every possible way to evade said bodyguard, which would be within the first week, and then Dick would just have to deal with a frustrated bodyguard who couldn’t find his charge.

“Have we heard anything from the kidnappers?” Dick asked. It hadn’t been that long since Tim had been taken but you never knew with kidnappers in Gotham.

“ _Not yet, and no word from the police either_ ,” Alfred replied calmly. Well, worth a shot.

“ _I have software at the ready to start tracking any incoming calls. They haven’t contacted Wayne Enterprises either_ ,” Barbara added and Dick was once more reminded of how glad he was that Alfred had called her in.

It wasn’t long before Dick pulled up to the ‘crime scene’. There wasn’t really any indicators that this was the site of a kidnapping but in the video it’d happened fast and without much of a struggle. This meant the victim was either really weak or a Tim who didn’t see the point in struggling when he was letting them kidnap him in the first place.

And then he heard it, the shrill ping of a phone. Dick scanned the road, finding the offending item as its screen flashed with an incoming message. Wasting no time, the vigilante picked up the innocent-looking phone but upon further examination found it to be Tim’s. And that wasn’t just because he, on the lock screen, could see six missed calls from Dick Grayson. There were two reasons for Dick’s frowning at this. One, it meant that Tim actually had been kidnapped because he was the last person Dick knew who would just leave his phone on a random street. Especially because that phone had been tinkered with to the point where it was almost a weapon. Two, Tim had seriously put Dick in as ‘Dick Grayson’, his own brother and Tim had put Dick in his contacts like some other impersonal acquaintance. Nope. He wouldn’t stand for this. Tim was just gonna have to change it.

“Any luck tracking that van cause this is definitely what we were looking for,” Dick told the others while he scanned the rest of the scene for anything even remotely useful.

“ _Still working on it. The van gets to the down-town area and then the traffic cams lose it. Anything on your end, Agent A_?” Barbara explained, sounding mildly peeved by the lack of good cameras, an annoyance that they should most definitely do something about.

“ _Sadly no_ ,” Alfred replied. So the police still hadn’t reached out. They most likely wanted to see if they could handle the situation without drawing the Wayne’s into it but considering that they _knew_ Dick already knew they really should’ve been in contact by now. This wouldn’t have happened in Blüdhaven.

“Well, I found his phone but it’s locked and I don’t want to try my luck at guessing his passcode,” Dick told them, determining that the phone was most likely the only clue he’d get from this scene.

“ _He dropped his phone_?” Barbara asked, suddenly sounding very intrigued. Understandably so since Tim usually kept his phone close.

He’d probably been on the phone when he was taken, Dick mused, only that wouldn’t make sense because surely Tim would’ve called for help in some way. Unless leaving the phone was a deliberate move.

The phone pinged again, the screen lighting up with pieces of a text message from… H? Who the fuck was ‘H’? Wait, not important, Dick could ask Tim that in person later this evening because he was going to find him. And chances were that Tim had known Dick, or one of his other family members, would’ve found the phone.

“Oracle, I’m gonna connect the phone to my car’s computer. Tell me if you can bypass the security on it,” Dick said, already in the motion of getting into the car and plugging in the phone. Because if Tim had indeed left it on purpose it would be with a weakened version of its normal security, which would still require Oracle to hack. Although, that was still depending on how long Tim had had from the moment he'd know he was about to be kidnapped to the moment he'd dropped his phone.

“ _Please, who do you think taught him_?” Barbara laughed. More typing sounded from her end before the phone unlocked itself, showing a picture of a license plate.

“You got a visual on this?” Dick asked, barely keeping from grinning because Tim had most definitely counted on them to find the phone. “Cause if not you should download the most recent picture.”

“ _He did not…_ ” Barbara huffed, slightly amused because she most definitely had done exactly what Dick had suggested.

“ _I do believe he did, Miss,_ ” Alfred’s voice sounded smugly through the comms.

“ _I’ll run the plate, see who the van belongs to, and send out the drones to check all vehicles matching the van’s description for this plate_ ,” Barbara said.

“I’ll see if there’s anything else on the phone,” Dick told them. Knowing Tim, there might very well be other clues as for where he’d been taken but Dick also kind of couldn’t let an opportunity to snoop through his brother’s usually very well guarded phone pass him by. Tim would do the same if he were in Dick’s shoes. Definitely.

Okay so, technically he knew it was wrong to go through his brother’s phone but would Tim hesitate before hacking into Dick’s personal electronic devices? Well, he might but he’d still do it. Dick had been blackmailed by his brother too many times to not suspect foul play in that regard. So really, this was payback.

The phone pinged again, another message from the mysterious H, and Dick immediately tapped the conversation, scrolling up to before Tim had been taken.

‘Need your help’ 

‘Can’t. I’m at a work gala thing’

‘Ditch it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯’ 

‘I can’t. They’ll notice if I leave’ 

‘Make an excuse! Say you feel sick! 

Get kidnapped! Say there’s a two for 

one taco sale you just cant miss idc!’ 

‘That last one isn’t even a good

excuse’ 

‘You clearly have wrong friends’ 

‘Would you believe me if I said I had

an urgent two for one taco sale I

needed to run to?’ 

‘A friend has said that to me. I 

went with him. It was a good sale’ 

‘Sure, let me just tell all of these

high end bureaucrats that I gotta

go get two tacos for the price of 

one. That’ll work out perfectly…’

‘Perfect! No take backs! See you 

in ten!’ 

‘I know you know how sarcasm works

and that this is your way of making

me agree. It isn’t gonna work’

‘Ugh fine. I’ll kidnap you then.’ 

‘Don’t. I’m pretty sure Dick is on the

security detail’ 

‘You kidnap me and he’ll definitely

find you’ 

‘but I need your help now and you 

certainly aren’t coming willingly???’ 

‘It's like you want to be found...

Fine, I'll see if I can sneak away.

text you when I'm on my way

to yours’ 

‘Finally! Thank you!’ 

‘You on your way yet?’ 

‘Timberly?’ 

‘Are you ignoring me now?’ 

‘Okay, real mature. I’ll just go 

without you’ 

At least this explained why Tim had left but who would Tim be writing and what exactly had this H needed help with? H obviously knew Tim well enough, that much was apparent because if not Tim wouldn’t have replied in the first place. Which very much narrowed down the pool of possible people. Alright, so Dick couldn’t for the life of him think of anyone who could be H and it wasn’t exactly relevant to the task at hand, which was finding Tim, but dammit if Dick’s curiosity hadn’t been piqued. Especially since Tim was alluding to the fact that this person didn’t want to be found by Dick.

“ _I got a location. Warehouse in East End. I’m sending you the coordinates now_ ,” Barbara spoke, effectively interrupting Dick’s thoughts.

“On my way,” Dick confirmed, flooring the speeder as the built-in computer started calculating the fastest route. “Thanks for helping out, you two.”

“ _Anytime, Nightwing,_ ” Barbara replied and Dick was sure that she was smiling on the other end. He could just tell these things. 

“ _Quite so. I will be here should you need me_ ,” Alfred chimed in as well, helpful as ever. Dick really appreciated knowing that he didn’t have to be in this mess on his own. But for now he had a brother, he’d helped raise, to save from kidnappers.

And so he gave his thanks and pulled up outside the warehouse, making sure his car was hidden before he snuck into the warehouse. Best not to alert the kidnappers right away because people did stupid things when they felt threatened and Dick was not letting Tim get hurt tonight. Not on his watch.

The first thing he noticed was how oddly quiet the warehouse was. Also, that there was an entire basement area to it that would be perfect for hiding away a hostage. But still, shouldn’t there have been more people guarding the place? Unless it was just the three people and their getaway driver. In that case Tim was really gonna get a scolding for not just saving himself and telling the police that vigilantes did it. He technically wouldn't be lying

Dick snuck down the stairs, vigilant as ever which was probably why he heard the faint whisper of movement in one of the rooms he passed. Sneaking to the door, he prepared himself for a fight, opened it quickly, and paused immediately at the figure who’d been standing over a computer of some sort.

“You’re the one who took Tim?!” Dick exclaimed, vaguely horrified because the person standing in front of him, a hand already on his gun, was none other than Red Hood. Fucking hell.

Jason paused briefly, probably weighing the pros and cons of actually shooting Dick before the older’s sentence actually registered. “Wait, Tim’s here too?? And what do you mean took? Someone took Tim?”

“So you didn’t kidnap Tim?” Dick asked, confusion making him lower his two Escrima sticks ever so slightly.

“Tim was kidnapped? How?!” Jason exclaimed, surprise obviously softening his own aggression towards Dick. Although Dick was pretty sure that Jason wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him.

But that wasn’t important right now. “He let himself get kidnapped, again. Left his phone behind…”

“So _that’s_ why he didn’t reply to my texts,” Jason mumbled, stance relaxing ever so slightly. Dick, on the other hand, was more alert than ever and he didn’t make detective in a year by ignoring glaringly obvious things just because he didn’t want to believe them.

“You’re H?! Of course. H. Hood. Red Hood. Fucking hell,” Dick concluded, suddenly feeling very tired. That was what Tim had been hiding. He was friends with Jason, or at the very least in contact with him. The person who’d tried to murder him. This was typical.

Jason paused for a moment, clearly taking in all of the new information. “So you’re here to get Tim, not stop crime?”

“I didn’t know there were other crimes here to stop than a kidnapped Tim!” Dick exclaimed, throwing out his arms in obvious exasperation. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say because never in his life had Dick been so sure that Jason was rolling his eyes under the helmet.

“And you call yourself a vigilante _and_ a cop? That’s just disappointing,” Jason scoffed, crossing his arms. Well, Dick thought wearily, seemed neither of them was trying to pick a fight. Or at least not a fistfight.

“Yeah well, why don’t you enlighten me then? Since you know everything?” Dick started, just about done because it was Jason’s fault that Tim had even left the launch event gala. Which reminded him… “But before that, let me remind you that he was texting _you_ while _being kidnapped_! How didn’t you fucking notice?!”

“Not so loud! Unless you _want_ me to kill someone to make sure certain things stay secret,” Jason hissed lowly. Okay, so it was fine for Jason to reveal that Dick, Nightwing, was a cop as well but the second Dick alluded to Jason knowing Tim the helmeted guy got defensive. Fucking hell.

“Fine, dammit! I don't have time for this. I need to find Tim,” Dick hissed in a stage whisper, just about ready to leave Jason to whatever he was doing even if it went against his better judgement. So he did. He shot Red Hood a long, almost stoic glare before turning on his heel and leaving the computer room. Only to notice the obvious presence that was the other vigilante following. “ _What_ are you doing?!”

“Getting Tim away from the kidnappers, what else?” Jason asked, annoyance lacing his every word. Clearly the guy wasn’t happy about the situation. Well, neither was Dick. Actually, Dick thought he was perfectly capable of getting Tim out of this situation, mostly because he’d done it multiple times before. Really, he didn’t _need_ the help and he sure as hell didn’t _want_ it but for some reason Hood seemed to care about Tim’s safety and while Dick couldn’t fathom why exactly that was it at least seemed genuine. For now.

“Fine, but if you as much as _point_ that gun at Tim I’m sending you right back to Blackgate,” Dick threatened not even looking at the other. Honestly, if he did he didn’t know what he’d do. Mostly because this Jason actually seemed like the obnoxious brat that he’d been before… before the accident.

“I’d like to see you try, Goldie,” Jason growled menacingly and for once in his life, Dick didn’t rise to the bait. He just took a deep breath and reminded himself that Tim was counting on him. But dammit if it hadn’t been long since he’d last heard that nickname. Goldie. Because he was the so-called ‘Golden Boy’.

Dick tried his best not to let it get to him, keeping his focus on the mission at hand. This wasn’t the Jason he’d known, wasn’t the little, obnoxious street kid. That kid wouldn’t have tried to kill his younger brother. That kid was dead. Gone. And whoever this helmeted stranger was it definitely wasn’t that kid. Even if he did seem to have the same memories and name.

It took a conscious effort for Dick to get out of his own head, and at that point he and Jason, no, not Jason, _Hood_ , had found the hallway clear and were moving down the next one. They encountered one guy as they moved on and Dick was quick to take him down before Hood could even draw his pistol. Dick was not going to have any casualties on this mission, thank you very much.

Finding Tim actually proved rather easy. He was, unsurprisingly, behind the only locked door which led into a fairly big room, in which Tim was placed on a chair in the middle. He’d looked up as the two vigilantes entered, a brief flash of surprise shining through before he schooled his expression back to looking quite bored.

“Oh thank God, Mr. Red Hood, you gotta save me. Oh great you brought Nightwing. I’m so relieved. You’ve saved my life. Now, please untie me,” Tim immediately started, his tone betraying the meaning of his words. Dick had heard this spiel, or something similar to it, a number of times and it only seemed to get even more unconvincing the more times he heard it. Whether it was because they all knew none of them wanted to be here or Tim just didn’t really care to sound convincing, Dick really didn’t know. Whatever the cause, that monotonous and deeply sarcastic tone really wasn’t fooling anyone. Also, Dick knew for a fact that Tim would never seriously thank god.

“You… undid the ropes hours ago, didn’t you?” Hood asked, obviously deadpanning underneath his helmet.

“Yup!” Tim shrugged with obvious fake cheer, holding up his hands to show they weren’t tied. Every time, Dick thought to himself, seriously considering strangling the kiddo because he did this every… fucking… time…

“Let’s just get out of here,” Dick sighed, more than ready to just be done with this so he could have a damn word with his younger brother about keeping secrets as major as your would-be-murderer being back in town. One would think that’s the kind of thing you’d tell your family. Apparently not.

“Nah, fuck that. Tim. I need you to crack the computer a few hallways down,” Hood said to the kiddo and Dick had just about had it.

“No. No fucking way. I am taking Tim home and then we’re gonna have a long conversation about a few specific _topics_ , am I clear?” Dick said, staring down the youngest person in the room who didn’t even look sorry. In fact, he didn’t seem to be even paying attention to the obvious danger that Hood posed.

“Where’s the computer?” Tim asked Hood, straight up ignoring his oldest brother because of course he would. Dick was certain that Hood was grinning beneath that helmet and by god did he want to just forcibly drag Tim back to the manor and leave him at Bruce and Alfred’s mercy.

“Next hallway over, on the way out,” Hood replied easily without any of the annoyance and growling from before. Odd.

“Alright, let’s go,” Tim said just as easily, already walking toward the door when Dick stopped him.

“Absolutely not. We’re leaving before you get hurt,” Dick said, staring Tim down as if he could somehow make the younger see things his way. Tim didn’t say anything, just met his older brothers stare, head slightly tilted as if he was trying to make sense of something.

Seriously, couldn’t Tim see that he was way too vulnerable without his suit? They still didn’t know how many kidnappers there were in total or what they wanted. Not to mention, Hood might decide to finish the job and kill Tim. Dick didn’t care how much Tim seemed to trust Hood, he wasn’t buying it and in Dick’s eyes Tim wouldn’t be safe before he was as far away from Hood as he could possible be.

“I appreciate the rescue but I assure you that I’ll be fine,” Tim replied formally, like he would a stranger which was a smart move because Tim wasn’t supposed to know Nightwing, but Dick still couldn’t help but frown. Why did all his brothers have to be stubborn, little shits? “The computer’s on the way out, correct? With the questions these people kept asking me I don’t imagine their systems will be that difficult to get into.”

Dick glared at the infuriating kiddo, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. Tim had made up his mind and now Dick could either go along with this idiocy and make sure Tim didn’t get hurt or leave him. With Red Hood. Yeah, nope, that wasn’t ever gonna happen, now was it? “Fine, but at the first sign of trouble I am dragging you to the car whether you want to go or not.”

“We don’t got all day, kids,” Hood grumbled impatiently from the door and Tim seemed to immediately roll his eyes, like he’d dealt with the former’s snark a few times too many. Dick really didn’t like that thought.

“You fucking know I’m older than you, brat,” Dick exclaimed but reluctantly, Dick let Tim go, trailing behind him as Hood led the way. Of course Tim didn’t seem to be even the slightest bit worried about his safety all the while Dick kept scanning their surroundings for threats and if his gaze returned to the helmeted vigilante more often than not well, that was entirely understandable.

Thankfully, they reached the computer room without any incidents and once there Tim immediately went to work. Dick didn’t really know what he’d expected, maybe alarm bells, dozens of armed soldiers running at them, and Hood betraying Tim’s apparent trust, mortally wounding the kiddo and Dick had to watch him bleed out while knowing that he had failed him as an older brother.

None of that happened. Tim downloaded the contents of the computer to the flash drive handed to him by Hood in a matter of minutes and soon they were on their way out of the warehouse. Dick walked to his car determinedly, only pausing when he saw Tim dragging his feet to the point where he was falling into step next to Red Hood. Was it Dick’s imagination or had Tim’s demeanour suddenly changed?

“So… could I maybe ride back with you?” Tim asked Hood who just let out a bark of laughter. Oh. Tim knew he was in trouble and was therefore not looking forward to being trapped in a car with Dick who was quietly seething now that Tim was mostly out of danger. Hardly surprising.

“Nope, you’re on your own, kiddo,” Hood laughed mirthfully. He even patted Tim on the shoulder before, surprisingly, pushing him towards the car.

“You’re a cruel human being,” Tim muttered under his breath which only had Hood laughing even harder as he walked away.

“Whatever you say, Timbers,” he replied, probably grinning under that stupid helmet of his.

“Hood,” Dick called, voice devoid of any emotion but even that didn’t halt Hood’s retreat. No, he just kept walking, the only thing changing being the fact that he flipped Dick the bird over his shoulder. And then he was gone. Probably for the best, Dick sighed to himself, Tim would no doubt stop him from arresting the other vigilante and Dick really didn’t want to fight both Hood _and_ Tim. Not to mention that he wasn’t sure what he’d even say to the other vigilante. So instead he turned to the vigilante he did know how to deal with. “Get in the damn car, Timothy.”

Tim seemed to visibly freeze before doing as Dick ordered and climbing into the passenger seat because right now Dick was at the point of anger where he was using full names and that was never a good sign in the Wayne household. At least it wasn’t all four names and Dick took a few seconds to compose himself enough to know he wouldn’t just start yelling at Tim in the car before getting behind the wheel. Mostly because knowing Tim, he would jump out of the moving car to get away from the situation.

A few tense minutes passed before Tim broke the silence. “Dick, I know what you’re-”

“Tim, don’t,” Dick interrupted. “We’ll talk at the apartment.”

“I don’t think-” Tim tried only to be cut off again.

“I mean it. Another word and we’re going to the manor instead of your apartment so you can explain this whole mess to B personally,” Dick threatened which did shut Tim up. Alright, he’d admit that it wasn’t entirely fair to bring up Bruce but dammit Tim needed to shut up and let Dick organise his thoughts so the conversation they were going to have didn’t explode in both their faces.

So, Tim sat back in his seat, eyes staring pointedly through the front window while Dick concentrated on the road, his thoughts sorting themselves to the point where he might be able to look at Tim without wanting punch some damn sense into him. It did seem like all too soon when Dick pulled up to the apartment complex. Tim knew the drill by now, he’d go up and then Dick would drive away because getting house calls by vigilantes was the kind of thing that put targets on people’s backs and Tim surely didn’t need more of those. Normally Dick would go in through the window to make sure that Tim was actually okay, which he always was but a brother had the right to worry about his siblings. This time, Dick would still go through the window, he’d still check if Tim was actually alright, and then he’d get to the part where Tim was going to explain himself.

But first, informing the others that Tim was safe and sound and that they should get the police en route to the warehouse because they’d only encountered one of the possibly four people involved. Barbara said she’d be on it and, having full faith in her abilities to tie up the loose ends, Dick left his comms in the car, making his way to his brother’s penthouse apartment.

When he entered, Tim was sitting with his laptop by his dinner table, calmly typing away at some report or other. Meaning that he was perfectly fine. Or hiding some sort of very serious injury. This time Dick was gonna give him the benefit of the doubt only because there hadn’t been any blood at the warehouse or on Tim’s clothes.

“What were you _thinking_?” Dick asked, closing the laptop Tim was working at because if he didn’t the genius would just ignore him and keep working. There was obviously still the chance of Tim ignoring Dick but with the laptop closed he’d at least have to get creative about it.

“I really don’t see how that’s-” Tim started, not even surprised at Dick’s appearance.

“First of all, you know better than to sneak away at such a high publicity event as that launch gala. Do you _want_ to get kidnapped? Is that it?” Dick continued, staring his brother down.

Tim seemed to hesitate before opening his mouth again. “No, but-”

“Yeah that’s what I thought. It’s a waste of your time, my time, Alfred’s time, and Barbara’s because we need to track you down. Not to mention, you could’ve gotten hurt!” Dick exclaimed, allowing his worry to actually shine through because Tim needed to understand. He needed to be more careful and avoid putting himself in situation where he’d get kidnapped.

“I wasn’t,” Tim countered. “I can handle myself.”

“Not as the civilian Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne you can’t. And sure, you didn’t get hurt this time, thank god, but you’re not invulnerable, not even close, and what happens when one of the kidnappers decide to fucking torture you for information, huh? You break free and have to fight off who knows how many people probably armed to the teeth _without your suit_ ,” Dick pressed on, seeing the flicker of guilt flash through Tim’s eyes. “I know you’ve taken a beating before and god knows we’ll both end up in the infirmary enough times in the future but _please_ stop putting yourself at risk like this. You’re smarter than that.”

Dick paused to breathe for a moment, finding that Tim was frowning thoughtfully. That was the most he could afford to push that specific issue because hopefully now Tim would actively think about it. At least Dick knew that Tim had heard him this time. Which left the other, much bigger, issue to be discussed.

“And when were you gonna tell us that Red Hood was in Gotham?” Dick asked, deciding to cut to the chase. Only, Tim didn’t reply, no, he fell silent, staring out into the air in an obvious tactic to avoid Dick’s searching glare and with a pang of horror, Dick realised something. “You weren’t. Fucking hell, Tim! He tried to kill you!”

“Lots of people have tried to kill me,” Tim shrugged nonchalantly. “He didn’t want you to know.”

“How long?” Dick questioned Tim who shot him a slightly confused look. “How long has Red Hood been in Gotham? How long have you been covering for him?”

“I started seeing him around Gotham a little while after my mission with the Outlaws,” Tim sighed, obviously not seeing any point in keeping it a secret anymore. The cat was out of the bag anyways and Dick wasn’t sure how to feel about it. “So, a few months, I think.”

“And you didn’t think it was relevant to us that a murderer was spotted in the city. A murderer who tried to kill you and even abducted you!” Dick stated.

“He didn’t abduct me! And we can’t hold him accountable for those killings. He was under the effect of the Lazarus Pit,” Tim told him. Dick was about to protest when Tim got to his feet, effectively cutting Dick off. “He was brainwashed by the League of Assassins, for fuck’s sake! How the fuck can you hold what he did under their influence against him when you had no problem forgiving Damian?!”

“That’s different. Damian is a kid, he can’t help how he was raised!” Dick stated, making perfect sense to himself but that was apparently the last drop for Tim.

“I fucking know! You keep _telling_ me that! But what you seem to forget is that Damian tried to kill me as well. At least Jason is sorry about it which really can’t be said for Damian!” Tim exclaimed hotly.

“Damian is-”

“Don’t you fucking finish that sentence because it is bullshit and we both know it. Damian would happily murder me in my sleep and the only reason he hasn’t is because Bruce told him not to. Jason might act threateningly but the worst he’ll do is shoot me with a rubber bullet,” Tim said, voice just slightly more raised than normal but enough for Dick to tell that Tim was angry. Also, rubber bullets? Hood was using rubber bullets now? Never mind that.

“Damian doesn’t know better and that’s not the problem here! The problem is that you knew Red Hood was-” Dick started, trying to remain calm when Tim interrupted him a second time.

“His name is Jason Todd and he is our damn brother. He is a human being who’s been through hell and back and he does not deserve your attempt to dehumanise him. So call him by his fucking name,” Tim snapped and for a moment, just one brief moment, Dick actually felt bad. Then he remembered himself.

“He tried to kill you!” Dick repeated, clearly thinking that was enough reason for Tim to back down. Tim had to see the problem with that. In hindsight, Dick really should’ve known better.

“And I forgave him! Because he. Was. Fucking. Brainwashed! He wasn’t in control and now that he is I am not going to let what he did under the influence of other people affect the way I see him! And neither should you!” Tim yelled, running a hand through his already messed up hair before continuing in a more normal volume. “You knew him before his life went to shit. Shouldn’t you be glad that he’s back?”

“That kid’s dead,” Dick said stubbornly.

“And now he’s back. I didn’t know him back then but I’ve heard enough stories from Alfred to know that he’s still Jason. You did know him. Can you honestly say, without a single shred of doubt that he’s no longer Jason?” Tim asked and this time it was Dick’s turn to lose his tongue. Because hadn’t he already remarked how Jason was still a snarky, little shit? The kid had even been hostile before he’d… gone. And that nickname, ‘Goldie’. Was Tim… right?

But he couldn’t just back down. “So you want me to give Jason a chance when you won’t do the same for Damian?”

“Don’t you fucking dare make this about something it’s not,” Tim said, quietly seething.

“How isn’t it the same fucking thing?” Dick pushed partly because he didn’t appreciate Tim making sense and partly because he actually wanted to know. If Tim had, allegedly, forgiven Jason then why hadn’t he even tried to mend his relationship with their youngest brother.

“Because Damian is an arrogant, stuck-up, spoiled brat who wouldn’t know common decency if it bit him in the ass!” Tim snapped, advancing a step towards Dick with a finger pointed accusingly. “Even if I tried to be civil and ‘give him a chance’ he would take that offer of peace and laugh in my fucking face and you know it. He thinks I am worthless, useless, and completely irrelevant. No, don’t deny it because he’s said as much to my fucking face.”

“Tim, he’s just a kid!” Dick exclaimed. “And he was _raised_ by the League of Assassins!”

Tim closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, his anger gone as quick as it’d appeared. “Yeah well, it doesn’t matter does it? You’ll just keep giving him whatever he wants because ‘he’s just a kid’. This whole argument is pointless.”

“I don’t just give him whatever he wants!” Dick said, honestly outraged because he was trying his damned best to undo the damage Talia and the rest of that murder cult had done to Damian. Why couldn’t Tim see that? Maybe if he actually tried helping with that, Damian would warm up to him!

“Except that’s _exactly_ what you did the second you thought Bruce was dead!” Tim hissed, anger returning in full force and all at once Dick realised what exactly Tim’s problem was.

“Is this really about me making Damian Robin? I told you that he needed the guidance! I needed to keep him close! And you’re my damn equal! I didn’t want you do be my sidekick!” Dick explained, rehashing the same old arguments he’d used back then. Honestly, he’d thought that Tim understood.

“Great! Both you and the little demon spawn got what you wanted! Guess everything is right in the world after all! Did it ever fucking occur to you what I wanted?! That maybe I wanted to _keep being Robin_? Or that I fucking needed you too? That I needed you to actually believe me? And that it really fucking hurt when you not only told me I was crazy but took the one thing I had left that reminded me of Bruce and gave it to someone who not only hates me but tried to _kill me_?!” Tim questioned Dick, breathing deeply and holy shit were those tears that he was trying to hold back? Dick had no idea what to do, what to say even, not that it looked like Tim actually expected a response. Fucking hell, Tim distancing himself suddenly made too much sense and Dick had no one to blame but himself. He’d done the one thing he’d promised himself not to do after Jason’s death. He’d let his brother down.

“I didn’t know,” Dick said softly, wanting to ask for forgiveness all the while not actually regretting his decision. And by god, Dick hated that he didn’t regret it. He should. He’d made a decision that hurt someone he cared about. Only that decision had been the only thing he could’ve done in that situation. And Dick knew that Tim could read the indecision in his expression, he knew that the way his younger brother’s expression settled on stoic was actually Tim pulling away, mentally shutting down, and Dick hated the fact that he was the reason for it.

“Forget it,” Tim sighed, turning his back to a dumbfounded Dick as he started walking towards the door.

“Tim, don’t go. I’m sorry,” Dick tried although he didn’t make any attempt at following the other, especially since Tim actually paused. He didn’t look back but he paused and for a brief moment Dick thought he had a chance to try and make this right again.

“No, you’re not,” Tim said slowly, obviously trying his very best to keep his voice level, controlled. Unsuccessfully. Dick almost wished he hadn’t pushed the subject.

And then Tim was gone. Dick heard the roar of a motorcycle as his brother took off to who knows where because said brother had just fled his own damn apartment.

Dick wished that Tim had just decided to punch him instead of this because as it was he wasn’t really sure if Tim ever wanted to talk to him again. A punch, Dick could deal with. Not knowing exactly where he stood with his own damn brother… that one was a bit tougher to swallow.

Sure, the last thing he had wanted to do was let Tim leave to go drive while being that furious but Dick also knew that nothing good would’ve come from stopping him. Best thing he could do in that very moment was give Tim his space because honestly, an angry Tim had no qualms about pushing his brothers out of a window and well, if Dick wanted any chance to fix this he needed to let Tim calm down enough to actually think. Kiddo had left his computer behind, which spoke volumes of just how pissed Tim was, and knowing Tim, he wasn’t about to return for it anytime soon.

So Dick did the only thing he could do. He left Tim’s apartment, making sure to lock up, and went back to the manor to tell the others that Jason was in Gotham. Because that conversation would surely go much better than the one he’d just had. Yeah, Dick wasn’t too hopeful but hey, probably couldn’t get much worse. He just hoped Tim would forgive him because god dammit, Dick couldn’t lose another brother, he just couldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Constructive criticism in regards to grammar, pacing, and the like is appreciated. Please drop a Kudos if you like the story :)  
> And I do apologise for the wait but exams and project writing are horrible and time consuming.


	5. Jason Todd

Out of all the different things Jason had expected to happen tonight, coming face to face with Nightwing only to then help him rescue a kidnapped Tim who actually didn’t need rescuing at all, had not been one. At least he’d gotten the info he’d needed, which was why his dinner table was currently hidden beneath a bunch of documents while he worked out the contents of the flash drive on his old computer. It was a piece of junk as it was but it worked for what he needed it to do.

So he worked, right until his front door opened and a Tim made a beeline towards the couch just to ungracefully flop face first down on it. He didn’t even greet Jason like usual which was Jason’s first clue that something was up, the second was that the first sound to actually leave the kid was long groan, but like hell Jason was gonna act like he was _worried_ about the kid.

“Oh do come in, make yourself at home, want something to drink?” Jason drawled sarcastically, Gothamite accent very much apparent only to be met by another groan from Tim who seemed to be pretty much done with existence right about then and there. Yeah, Tim didn’t seem like he was gonna move anytime soon. “That bad, huh?”

He might not know that much about Tim on a personal level yet but the double groan had to mean that something serious had happened and if Jason should guess then it had something to do with what happened after Jason had left Tim with Dick. So while it was kind of annoying that Tim just barged in and threw himself on Jason’s couch, Jason wasn’t going to kick the kid out without at least hearing him out.

“You gonna talk or just keep trying to become the couch?” Jason asked impatiently. This got another groan from the seemingly defeated kid/vigilante/tech expert. Okay, that would be a no. Well he wasn’t really doing any harm _and_ he was keeping quiet so Jason guessed he could allow him to stay. This time. “Fine, I’ll be over here, working, when you decide to rejoin reality, kid.”

And that was what Jason did, successfully ignoring the presence in his apartment. It took almost an hour before Tim actually moved, had he managed to fall asleep like that? Maybe. If that _was_ the case he’d probably needed it.

“I stormed out of my apartment after an argument with Dick and didn’t have anywhere to go,” Tim said quietly as he sat up with his head in his hands.

“Okay, seriously, what about my place screams safe house to you? Other than the fact that Dickie-bird won’t find you here. You can’t run from your problems idiot. Not _your_ problems anyway, cause they’ll hunt you down and I’d like my place bat free thank you very much,” Jason asked, sounding very much unimpressed although he did get up and fixed the two of them a drink which didn’t exactly match the intent of his words.

“Don’t worry, I made sure to cover my tracks; your place is still safe from the other bats. I just... don’t want to deal with them right now,” Tim sighed, gratefully accepting the glass of whiskey handed to him as Jason sat down next to him. “Mostly because Dick is gonna tell Bruce and Bruce is gonna start yelling. Again.”

Tim nursed his drink while Jason thought about how he was gonna go about this situation cause Tim didn’t seem like he was about to share anything else. Fuck it. Might as well be honest with him. “So… what do you expect from me here? You don’t wanna talk about it and I honestly don’t wanna hear about it.”

“I don’t know. Nothing?” Tim sighed, leaning back to look up at the ceiling.

And yet again they were thrown into silence. Surprisingly, Jason didn’t find it to be awkward in the slightest and the break from trying to track down a crazy elusive criminal was a welcome one. They just sat there, drinking in companionable silence.

“Bruce probably knows you’re Gotham now,” Tim said quietly, tapping his fingers at his glass in a basic rhythm.

This time Jason was the one to groan in complete and utter ‘I don’t wanna fucking deal with this’-ness. “Don’t remind me.”

“Yeah… Guess I’m gonna have to abandon my plan of gradually taking over the others’ patrol routes in East End,” Tim grimaced, most likely thinking about whatever the Bat’s reaction was gonna be. Whatever it was Jason doubted it’d be pretty. “And Plan Gradual Takeover was going so well too.”

“Yeah well, next time don’t get kidnapped then,” Jason frowned. Had Tim really been trying to get the other bats out of East End? So that Jason wouldn’t be accidentally seen by any of them? That was… both weird and oddly endearing. And brilliant because as far as Jason could tell it’d actually been working. The last month he’d not really seen any of the bats around, other than Tim of course, who was a tolerable presence. At least up until about seven hours ago when he’d found himself having to actually talk to Goldie.

“Or maybe don’t infiltrate the base of my kidnappers?” Tim shot back, sounding just a tad more like himself which was a relief. No one, least of all Jason, wanted to deal with a mopey Tim.

“Well if you’d just used the excuse I’d told you to you wouldn’t have gotten kidnapped,” Jason said, managing to get a short laugh from the kid next to him. Good.

“What, the taco sale? Jason, they know I can afford to buy two tacos whenever I want, sale be damned,” Tim chuckled, taking another sip of the whiskey.

“How much money you got doesn’t matter. Never turn down a good deal, Timbers,” Jason admonished Tim, grinning all the while. The younger rolled his eyes and took another sip of hos drink, the complete opposite of Jason who chose that moment to down his before getting up from the couch. Still, looking at the kid… yeah, that whole argument thing was still bothering him, Jason could tell. Mainly because Tim was currently staring at the wall, a faraway look in his eyes. “You sure you don’t want me to uh… get someone you can rant about this to?”

He could call up Conner, maybe. Conner could deal with a mopey and quite probably still upset Tim. The alien clone had seemed protective enough of the kid. Jason could deposit Tim on a roof a few blocks away and hang around to hand him over to Conner.

“I’m good,” Tim said, not convincingly at all. And there went Jason’s plans to pawn Tim off on someone else. Well, he’d tried, nothing more he could do. Inevitably, Tim’s eyes seemed to find the cluster of paper on the dining table. “Did you get something useful out of the information I got you?”

Jason stared at the kid knowingly but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt anyways. Cause it seemed like he’d had a rough night so far. “Yes and no. I’ll work it out.”

“I could take a look at it,” Tim suggested only to add, almost as an afterthought. “If you want.”

“I don’t,” Jason replied tersely. The nerve of this kid who’d already managed to somehow weasel his way into Jason’s life without getting shot. Well, Jason wasn’t about to let Tim do the same with his case.

“What’s it about?” Tim continued and Jason did know why the kid was pushing, despite Jason’s obvious annoyance. It was a distraction from what had happened. Didn’t mean Jason was gonna let him get away with it.

“None of your business,” Jason said lowly, crossing his arms as he leaned on the edge of his table. The case was about a few missing kids. Street kids. This was Jason’s turf and he did not care for Tim’s meddling. Neither would those kids.

“I can help,” Tim tried weakly. See, that argument would’ve been a lot more convincing if it’d been said with conviction instead of trailing off in a yawn. Tim seemed to realise this as well, frowning as he glanced behind Jason, at the kitchen.

Jason almost sighed, easily following Tim’s train of thought. “You are not raiding my coffee supply, Replacement. Just go the fuck to sleep. Take the couch. I’ll get you a blanket or something.”

“I don’t need to sleep,” Tim said stubbornly despite the fact that he hadn’t actually gotten up from the couch to look at the working mess on the table. Yeah, that sentence obviously meant: I don’t wanna sleep. Damn, Jason frowned, he was starting to become fluent in Tim-speak. This had to stop.

“Bullshit,” was Jason’s simple reply as he stared Timberly down. The kid was obviously dead on his feet. So what if he was bored out of his mind. Nothing a good sleep couldn’t fix. Jason himself was gonna turn in as soon as he figured out the connection between the files he’d stolen from the police precinct and the info Tim had gotten him. “My place, my rules. Right now you have two options: sleep, or leave and hide from Dick somewhere else.”

Tim, clearly remembering the last time Jason ordered him to sleep just sighed and lied down on the couch once more, grumbling to himself from the sound of it. Jason couldn’t help but smirk at that. Sure, they might not be in a spaceship flying kilometres over the surface, but this was the uppermost floor of an apartment in Gotham. And Tim didn’t have his suit.

True to his word, Jason did find a blanket which had been lying around and threw it across the room at Tim who didn’t react a first but eventually he caved. So maybe Jason should turn up the heat in his apartment but really, he’d survived worse and it wasn’t even that cold. Not his fault that Tim was cold all the damn time. And like hell he was gonna pay more in heating because Tim refused to sleep.

Honestly, for a guy who seemingly disliked sleeping, Tim was fast to fall asleep. Oh fuck it, Jason knew he wasn’t gonna get anymore work done so he might as well just pack up these papers and store them somewhere Tim wouldn’t find them just in case Jason wasn’t the first to wake up. He’d be damned if he let Tim solve this for him when Jason was perfectly capable of doing it himself. Just, maybe not with a sleeping Tim, whom Jason didn’t want to wake up because the kid had _finally_ fallen asleep, on the couch. Not to mention, Jason was kind of exhausted as well, had been even before he’d suddenly had to deal with Dick Fucking Grayson which had just served to drain the last bits of energy he’d had left after a stupidly long night of beating up other assholes.

So Jason packed up his papers and, halfway through, paused suddenly, staring at one file in particular for a good few seconds before turning his attention back to his computer. That’s it, Jason thought, huffing out a quiet laugh because the connection was right there. He’d found it.

A glance out the window told Jason that the sun was starting to come up and while Jason would love nothing more than to follow up on the lead right now because those kids didn’t deserve whatever that crazy, elusive asshole was doing to them, he knew he’d have to wait, get some sleep, probably some food as well, and go in under the cover of darkness. He’d be no use to the kids if he died halfway through the rescue just because he was exhausted and made a mistake. But damn if it didn’t tear him in two knowing that he’d have to make them wait another day. Or 12 hours more like. Still, that was 12 hours in hell, hoping for a rescue and slowly losing hope that it would even come. If they hadn't lost hope already; these kids didn't have a lot of that to start with.

Nonetheless, he quickly wrote down his findings and finished packing up, bringing the files and computer to his bedroom because, other than that one time, the kid had been very polite about staying out of Jason’s bedroom. Which Jason appreciated, not that he’d ever say as much. Sure, Timmers randomly barged into Jason’s apartment at strange hours but at least he let Jason keep some privacy.

Glancing over at the quietly sleeping bundle on the couch, Jason turned off the lights in the living room. This was the first time Tim had crashed at Jason’s place, most likely cause the kiddo didn’t want to inconvenience Jason. The fact that Tim didn’t want to go back to his own apartment, where he had clothes and coffee and computers (probably, Jason hadn’t actually been there yet but those seemed like the things Tim would need) didn’t sit too well with Jason. Looking at the facts, Dick had quite literally managed to chase the kid out of his own home.

Jason shook his head, as if that could get rid of those thoughts. God he needed to get some sleep. He was actually starting to care about this inconvenient trespasser. Why the fuck did his replacement have to be a genuinely not awful person? Yeah no, he definitely needed sleep, he thought to himself as he made his way into his bedroom and closed the door. This was getting ridiculous.

Turned out, Jason didn’t have to worry about Tim waking up before him because when Jason, a little around 12:00, found his way out of his bed and out into the kitchen, Tim wasn’t even stirring. Seemed the idiot genius had finally run out of caffeine. Good. Kid had probably needed the sleep badly.

Taking pity on the kid, Jason put a kettle on the stove. All he had in the way of coffee was the insta kind and if the shrill howling of the kettle didn’t manage to wake Tim up then Jason didn’t know what would. Meanwhile, Jason started cooking up breakfast. Half an hour later, food was done, water was boiling, and Tim still wasn’t stirring. Or, he’d moved, and then turned over on the other side with his arm over his head like he didn’t want to wake up.

“Okay, Replacement, get up,” Jason said, walking to the couch in order to glare down Tim who stirred slightly at Jason’s words. “I’m serious, Timmers, you either get up or get very well-acquainted with the floor.”

Timbo took a deep breath and slowly sat up, keeping the blanket wrapped around himself as he obviously tried to kick-start his brain. Not a word left him and, in Jason’s opinion, he looked kinda dead.

“There’s food and coffee in the kitchen if you want any,” Jason told him as he went back to his own food and coffee. Tim was gonna stay awake. Probably.

Tim did stay awake. He also brought the blanket with him as he trailed towards the kitchen, promptly sat down, and grabbed the cup of coffee Jason placed in front of him. All in all, his entire demeanour reminded Jason of a zombie and once more he felt kinda stupid for even thinking that Tim would go over his case had he woken up before Jason. The kid clearly wasn’t capable of neither thought nor polite conversation before he’d had his coffee. Which suited Jason fine, He wasn’t exactly the most chipper of people in the morning, or midday as it was. So he waited the customary 30 minutes for Tim’s coffee to kick in before even trying to start up a conversation.

“I’m sure you got a ride home,” Jason stated casually because he had no intention of dropping Tim off anywhere and the kid surely had somewhere to be. It was the middle of the day on a Wednesday, after all. Wait, was the kid missing work right now? Oh, who cared anyways.

Tim nodded as the words registered. “Yeah, parked my motorcycle some blocks away from here. Although fuel might be a bit low. Drove around for a good while before ending up here but should be enough to get me home and to work. What time is it?”

“A little over 12:00,” Jason shrugged casually. It wasn’t a big deal to Jason who of course didn’t have a job because of the whole being legally dead thing but Tim seemed to pause his eating for a few seconds before sighing heavily.

“My phone’s probably exploded with calls by now…” Tim muttered, seemingly talking out loud to himself. “If I leave here in fifteen I can make it to my apartment in ten if I use the program I installed into the computer on my motorcycle that makes the traffic lights turn green as I reach them… and then yeah, I can make my meeting at 14:00…”

“Wait, you installed _what_ on your bike?” Jason asked in genuine surprise although he probably shouldn’t be that taken aback. Traffic in Gotham was horrible on a good day and downright hell on any other. Of course Tim would have found a way to work around that.

“A software that automatically changes the lights to green as I reach them,” Tim repeated, entirely focused on the food Jason had cooked for him, blueberry pancakes. “This is really good.”

“Yeah, you’re gonna install that on my bike as well,” Jason said, completely ignoring Tim’s compliment. Mostly because he didn’t know how to deal with the praise. Demanding that the Babybird install useful gadgets for him? That he could do. Mostly because getting chased by the Gotham police for running red lights was getting kinda old. Especially when it happened every damn night. Some people would tell him to stop running red lights then but they had clearly never lived in Gotham. Jason had places to be dammit!

Tim looked up, clearly thinking it through. “No.”

Jason reacted the only way he could possible do; he grabbed Tim’s plate of pancakes and began walking towards the trash can while saying: “Guess you don’t need this then.”

“Hey! Wait!” Tim exclaimed, which Jason did, turning back expectantly to find the kiddo already halfway out of the chair. “Aren’t you supposed to be older than me?”

So Tim thought Jason acting childishly? Jason smirked, yeah, he really didn’t care. If it worked it worked. If it didn’t, well, in that case Tim wasn’t seeing those pancakes anytime soon.

“Only one way you’re getting these back,” Jason bargained and saw the telltale signs that Tim was thinking it through, the pause, the small frown, slightly furrowed brows.

And then Tim shrugged, sitting back down, and pulling his coffee closer to him. Okay so obviously Jason had chosen the wrong consumable to hold hostage and with the way Tim was now holding on to the caffeinated beverage there was no way Jason was gonna pry it from him. Frowning, Jason put the plate on the kitchen counter, still out of Tim’s reach.

“Your loss,” Jason said, trying to be nonchalant about it but he was too annoyed to properly pull it off. “Okay, why not? You already got the software.”

“I don’t know, Jay, did you try asking nicely?” Tim asked smugly.

Jason just stared at him for a good few seconds. Was this kid serious? He was willing to sacrifice his breakfast just to make Jason ask him nicely? What? Tim needed to get his priorities straight.

“Yeah, that ain’t gonna happen,” Jason said, crossing his arms and leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Your loss,” Tim echoed back. Well the twerp was obviously feeling better. Or he’d banished any thoughts of whatever had upset him to the furthest corners of his mind. That’s what Jason had done with the last really bad argument he’d had. Which was the reason he was in Gotham.

“I will shoot you,” Jason threatened half-heartedly. He would’ve if he’d had his guns on him but as it was it seemed like too much effort to go all the way to the other end of the room to get them.

Now, he could be really petty and just prevent Tim from leaving, thus making him even more late for work. But fuck it, kid had already had a rough night. Jason could find another way to convince him without making the earful Tim would receive at work even worse.

“Is that really how you repay the guy who let you crash on his couch? Not to mention saved you from the _obviously_ very dangerous kidnapping situation,” Jason asked, barely managing not to roll his eyes at the last bit because Tim could’ve saved himself before he’d even gotten kidnapped and they all knew it. And Nightwing hadn’t seemed all that worried, neither had Tim so it’d presumably happened multiple times before.

“You obviously did that out of the goodness of your heart,” Tim smirked as he countered Jason’s melodrama. Worst part was that it was partially true. For a brief moment after Goldie had told him, Jason had actually been worried about Tim. And then he’d found the little shit and immediately wanted to throttle him. “And anyways, I have to get to work.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at the other, mentally vowing that he’d make him give in before the end of the day. Obviously, he couldn’t invade Tim’s workspace, what with being legally dead, people would start asking questions. Seriously, why did Tim have to work at Wayne Enterprises? Couldn’t he have chosen somewhere Jason could easily infiltrate? Apparently not.

“We both know that would require me to have a heart,” Jason shot back easily. Tim didn’t reply just rolled his eyes and went for the door. For a brief moment, Jason considered telling the kid to drive safely but stopped himself. What did he care if the kid drove irresponsibly? Especially when Jason himself didn’t drive any other way than that. Which was probably why the cops kept trying to stop him. ‘Trying’ being the keyword of that sentence.

But Tim didn’t leave just like that, no, he paused by the door, sighing heavily before turning back to Jason. “Look, I know the second I leave this place you’re gonna start texting me relentlessly and I already have enough to deal with today. So, give me three reasons I should install that software on your bike.”

“Easy, the cops would have more time to catch actual criminals, I’d be able to reach destinations faster which means I might save a few more lives, and I’d stop pestering you about it,” Jason replied, mentally challenging Tim to call bullshit on the last one.

Another heavy sigh paired with Tim closing his eyes momentarily and Jason knew he’d won. “Fine. Send me the bike specs and I’ll work on it when I find the time.”

“And what exactly do you need my specs for?” Jason asked, immediately suspicious because that was his bike and he loved it very much.

“I need to make sure the computer is incorporated in your bike and doesn’t break the first time you find yourself being shot at,” Tim explained calmly. Okay, Jason could see the reason in that. “Not to mention, you or Roy have no doubt altered the bike in some way so I need to know which specifics I should account for when installing the small computer. Also, do you want a GPS that utilises the program as well?”

“Already got a GPS but if you wanna improve it I’m not gonna stop you,” Jason grinned. Sure, he might stop Tim from breathing if he found any trackers in it but just this once he was gonna take a chance. The tiny Babybird had proved trustworthy so far, although he did have an uncanny ability to know where people were. But for now he’d give him the benefit of the doubt.

“So, you send that to me and I’ll see when I find the time to work on it and now I really have to go,” Tim said, smiling lightly as he waved a quick goodbye to Jason. And then he was gone. No drawn out goodbyes or ‘thank you’s for Jason letting him stay over and cooking breakfast for him. Which was alright with Jason. The kid had left with a genuine smile; Jason knew he was thankful. Honestly, long drawn out conversations about things they both already knew just made Jason uncomfortable so this was better.

It was nearly an hour later when Jason got a text from Tim which was odd because usually Jason was the one texting first. What was even stranger was the content of said text.

‘Bruce doesn’t know you’re in Gotham. 

He wasn’t angry when I showed up 

to work, just acted strange and very 

not like usual.’ 

Jason looked at the text message, wondering just why Tim even cared that Bruce was acting weird. He was tempted to just send back a ‘good’ but thought better.

‘Keep it that way’

‘He wanted me to go to lunch with 

him! I had to use meetings as an 

excuse!’ 

Ah, so that was why Tim cared. Bruce was actually going out of his way to bother him, making Tim think up excuses to avoid what would most likely be a very strained lunch. But there seemed to be one very obvious fault in Tim’s plan.

‘Isn’t he just gonna keep up the

weird act until you relent?’

‘… Why does he choose the most 

inconvenient times to act weird??’ 

Jason rolled his eyes while simultaneously scoffing. How the actual fuck should he know? Was Tim aware of who he was asking that?

‘I might be the last person who can

actually answer that question’

‘so you’re saying ask Alfred?’ 

Well that much should’ve been obvious from the get-go.

‘I am definitely saying ask Alfred’

‘Gotcha’ 

Finally. Jason sent back a thumbs up emoji and put his phone back down on the table. Now he might actually be able to sit down and make a plan for that evening. The fact that he’d found the information he needed as he was packing up meant that he might’ve missed some obvious and important detail so he’d spent the previous hour going over the files again. And while he would love nothing more than to put on his suit right that moment and go save those kids, the suit wouldn’t be very inconspicuous in broad daylight.

Also, and Jason was loathe to admit it, Tim did have a point back when he’d forced the Outlaws to follow a plan. Things generally worked out for the better when you had a plan to follow, even if the mission would undoubtedly go awry. Rarely did Jason’s plans work out exactly how he’d intended but by having one he’d at least ensured that he had the best prospects of getting those kids to safety.

Which was why, as Jason geared up to go carry out the plan he’d spent a good deal of the day working on, he had a very clear set of goals in mind. Get in, get the kids out, get them to safety, and then go back in to beat the villain senseless if he hadn’t already managed to do that earlier.

Now, he was planning on going in quietly, so he needed a good place to stash his bike before approaching the building. Sure, he loved the two-wheeled vehicle but it wasn’t really built for remaining incognito. Neither was his suit but on foot he’d be able to actually sneak around instead of pulling up in front of the building guns blazing.

And so it was that he pulled up to one of his previous safe houses closer to the decrepit building the street kid kidnapper was working out of. He’d just about managed to park the bike and move a few steps before he heard movement behind him.

Jason paused, pulling out his guns as he quickly turned to the source of the noise, and upon seeing a black and blue blur, he pulled the trigger. Multiple times. Watching with great satisfaction as the figure staggered back upon impact. Of course, Jason hadn’t managed to do as much damage as he’d intended because his opponent had clearly counted on being shot at when he’d designed the suit. Still, those were definitely pained grunts.

“I really don’t have time for this right now, Goldie,” Jason growled, letting Nightwing move in close enough to take a swing at him which he blocked.

“Pity. I do,” Nightwing forced out through his teeth. Another grunt from the masked vigilante as Jason slammed the hard metal of his guns into the other’s abdomen. Fucker deserved it.

“Oh yeah?” Jason asked tauntingly, pausing as one of the Escrima sticks got past his defences, hitting his side. “This how you’ll spend your time now that Red’s too pissed to deal with you? Cause say the word and I’ll gladly beat you up any day.”

Nightwing hesitated, allowing Jason plenty of time to grab that opportunity and kick Nightwing back. Retaliation from the blow before was swift as he unloaded the clip of his other gun. To Nightwing’s credit he managed to block some of the bullets with those sticks of his.

“How the fuck do _you_ know about that?!” Nightwing exclaimed, rushing at Jason with renewed resolve before Jason could even try to reload even one of his guns.

“Kid didn’t tell you?” Jason taunted, knowing fully well that Tim wouldn’t have told Dick shit. Kiddo was fucking pissed. “He crashed at my place when you chased him out of his.”

“I didn’t-” Nightwing started only to get interrupted by a gun hitting him across the face, allowing Jason time to holster the other and then follow up the previous hit with a fist.

“Yeah, you did,” Jason told him, following that up with a kick to Nightwing’s knee, hoping that it would either shatter or dislocate it. It didn’t. “So when you gonna spring the news on B?”

Nightwing dodged under a swing that had been aimed at his throat, on the retreat as Jason advanced steadily. “I’m not!”

That did give Jason reason to pause, granting Nightwing the chance to make a swipe at Jason’s legs, sending him halfway to the floor where he had to think quickly in order to avoid the twin Escrima sticks currently going for his helmet. Jason kicked his own legs out, sending the other sprawling to the floor as well, Escrima sticks flying through the room, and then Jason was on top of him, beating his face in.

“Why. The. Fuck. Not?!” Jason growled, punctuating each word with a punch only for Goldie to catch the fourth, flipping them around. Except he didn’t immediately return the favour, no, he briefly paused, catching his breath.

“Because!” Nightwing forced out through bloodied teeth as he lifted Jason from the ground by his jacket slamming him down into the floor. Okay, even with a helmet on Jason felt pain blooming from the impact. “No matter my personal opinion of _you_ , I will _not_ do that to Tim.”

Jason overpowered Dick once more, anger fuelling his strength because he did not fucking want any favours from Dick fucking Grayson. And how dare he say that he was not telling Bruce because he didn’t wanna do that to Tim. It wasn’t Dick’s decision!

The masked vigilante imitated Nightwing’s move but with a lot more force behind it, so really, it wasn’t much of a surprise that the black and blue vigilante lost consciousness. Jason quickly checked Dick over, just to make sure he hadn’t cracked his opponent’s skull or left him in some way lethally wounded because that hadn’t been his intention. Finding nothing of that sort, Jason staggered to his feet, already feeling the various new bruises he’d acquired.

Well, one thing was sure: he was gonna have to park his bike somewhere else. Which was really just fucking inconvenient. Damn you Dick, Jason thought to himself as he started up the bike again, leaving the Golden Boy behind in the compromised safe house. Dick would be safe there. After all, he was the sole reason Jason now considered it compromised. And Jason sure hoped Dick would have a killer headache when he woke up. As it was, Jason could already feel a headache of his own building and he had barely even started his night. God he needed a drink.

Nevertheless, Jason changed his original plan, parking just slightly closer to his destination. Using the cover of darkness, he entered the building through the ceiling, relying on his stealth training to navigate the rafters all the while surveying the room beneath him.

Suddenly, two other figures dropped from the ceiling and Jason immediately felt his blood turn to ice. Nope. No way. Fuck that. Jason slowly started making his way back to the place he’d dropped down. Batman could save the kids. Most of the street kids seemed to like him. It would work out. And if not, Jason would come back the next day and get them.

Only then, the unthinkable happened. Unthinkable to Jason at least cause he had spent most of his waking hours trying to avoid any thoughts of what he would do in that situation. Robin spotted him. If that had been the end of it then Jason would’ve been fine. Good. Amazing even. Except, it wasn’t. Because fate really seemed to love fucking Jason over. Robin pointed him out. To Batman. Bruce. The Caped Crusader who turned sharply to glare at Jason.

He could’ve sworn he only blinked for a second but all of a sudden, Batman was only a rafter away. “You.”

“Thanks kid, Red Robin did mention that you can’t be counted on for shit,” Jason seethed, thinking about drawing a gun because if Bruce decided to hit him he was gonna hit him hard and fast but really Jason would much rather just try to talk his way out of this mess.

The only indication that said kid was even listening was a slight tilt of his head while he remaining eerily silent. Yep. That would also be a check on the list of behaviours Tim had told Jason that he should expect from the youngest Wayne, Bruce’s biological son, the baby assassin. Whom Jason could’ve sworn he’d seen before.

“I told him to stay away from you,” Batman said, voice gravelly. Oh shit, the jaw was tense now. Maybe Jason shouldn’t have told the jackass about Tim. Okay, he most definitely shouldn’t have talked about Tim.

But Jason really couldn’t just keep his mouth shut and make a run for it. Not when the big man himself had set himself up for a sarcastic retort. It was just against Jason very nature. “Since when do any of your charges listen to you?”

If Tim had been here he would’ve backed up Jason’s point, of that he was sure. Probably pointed out that Jason had a point. But he wasn’t which was good for Tim and overall just bad for Jason. At least Tim could’ve distracted Batman long enough for Jason to bail. Wait, Tim.

Jason knew he needed to think fast, to somehow convince Bruce that he wasn’t a threat. Well, not as big of a threat. “Look, I’m not a threat to any of you. Red Robin’s alive, you know he is. You tried to have lunch with him today!”

Immediately, Batman tensed up, looking for all intents and purposes like he was seconds away from sending Jason right back to Blackgate. Honestly, Jason really could’ve phrased that better so as to not sound like some dangerous stalker.

“How do you know that?” Batman growled lowly, the air of menace constantly surrounding him seemed to grow in intensity.

“He texted me! Complained about shit like not wanting to, probably cause he was behind on work,” Jason explained, mouth running a mile a minute. To Jason’s relief it actually seemed to work, Bats’ posture eased up just a fraction which was still not even close to relaxed but when was Bruce ever? “Important thing is this: he isn’t dead. So I’m really not the priority right now, the kidnapped kids are.”

“Kidnapped kids?” Bats asked, showing that rare hint of confusion that only someone who’d worked with him for quite a while would recognise. Jason was loathe to admit that he still could pick up on that while simultaneously being slightly relieved. Cause that confusion meant Jason might not have to fight him, which Jason was sure his most likely bruised ribs appreciated.

But seriously?! How did Bruce miss the kids being kidnapped? Wasn’t this supposed to be a group of detective vigilantes? Because they sure wasn’t doing a very thorough job with all the clues they’d had to have missed to not know that. “The missing street kids? First one taken was weeks ago?”

Both Batman and Robin stared at him in complete silence. In that moment the similarity between the two was almost eerie. It hit Jason, much like Dick’s Escrima sticks had barely an hour earlier, that the two of them were completely clueless. This meant that they were also just standing there, not saving the kids.

“What, do you really think I would lie about this?” Jason asked, outrage winning against his desire to not make Batman punch him. The glare Batman shot him spoke volumes of what exactly the vigilante was thinking. “Fucking fine! Don’t take my word for it, but at the very least send the miniature Robin to check.”

You owe me at least that much, Jason thought spitefully. Asshole. Also, that child was way too scrawny to be out fighting crime. How old was he even?! Tim hadn’t said, hadn’t really spoken a lot about Damian other than an initial report of what the new Robin was likely to do and that much had only been because Jason had asked.

Batman turned his head to nod at the child, no doubt keeping Jason’s figure in his line of sight because the second Robin dropped down, that glare was turned towards Jason once more. Any other day Jason would’ve been ready to throw down, even if he only had a slim chance of winning, but no. Tonight, Jason wasn’t at his best, he knew that. Hell, his brain felt like it was pounding against his skull, trying to escape. Really, the fight with Dick had left Jason feeling like he’d gotten hit by a truck and it just about took Jason swallowing all his pride to admit, even just to himself, that he didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of winning a fight against Bruce right in that moment. Sure, Jason had had worse but Batman wouldn’t pull his punches like Dick had at first, like Jason might. No, he’d go for the injuries Jason was already sporting so, honestly, fuck that.

“So… can I… go? Or…?” Jason started reluctantly. Mostly because asking Bruce for permission to do _anything_ had Jason genuinely questioning whether he’d rather dig himself out of another grave.

“No.”

Okay then. How the fuck was he gonna get out of this? Was he really just gonna stand on a stupid rafter in a decrepit old building, praying to some lord above that Bruce very suddenly got distracted for the five seconds it would take Jason to haul ass? Cause the second Bruce did look away, Jason was gone. Which Bruce had most likely already figured out hence the whole staring Jason down without the need to blink apparently. Was it too much to hope that one of the rafters broke from their weight? Ideally Bruce's although Jason would take falling to, if not his second death then at the very least, a very painful hospital stay. 

It felt like forever before Bruce heard back from miniature Robin. An eternity spent in awkward silence as Jason tried not to feel like a child getting scolded by a parent. This was stupid, Jason thought. Just so horribly stupid. Bruce lost that privilege when he-. No, Jason was not gonna go there. Not in this lifetime.

“Robin confirmed your story,” Bruce said evenly. That voice wasn’t betraying even the slightest hint of emotion, other than Batman’s usual angry growl.

Hadn’t been a story, Jason thought bitterly but kept his mouth shut. At this point there wasn’t really much he could do, especially cause Bruce was almost as stubborn as Dick if not more. Jason wasn’t sure, after all, it’d been a while, time could’ve mellowed Bruce out. And Jason had no intention of finding out.

Sounds of fighting drifted up into the rafters and Jason noticed the Big Bad Bat shift uncomfortably. Mini Robin had been discovered, it would seem, and Bats did not like the idea of leaving him to fight off the villain’s henchmen on his own one bit. Which meant that if Jason played his cards just right, he had a golden opportunity of escape.

Slowly, Jason sat down, knowing that this would make Batman glare at him even more but once Jason was seated, he made himself as small of a target as he could while also keeping up the appearance of not going everywhere. If Bruce decided to start a fight now, Jason would had a very tough time fighting back but if Jason’s half-plan worked then he wouldn’t need to. Especially since he took care to imitate the exact carefree way he would’ve sat on ledges back when he was Robin. Or at the very least, an adult imitation. Jason knew for a fact that he probably sat like that sometimes because it was surprisingly comfortable.

Either Jason’s attempt at playing on Bruce’s nostalgia or the fighting downstairs took a turn for the worse. Whatever the case, Batman looked increasingly conflicted until finally:

“Stay here,” Bruce ordered with grim conviction. Nostalgia hit Jason like a punch to the gut. He froze up, memories of the many times Bruce had ordered him to stay back from a fight flashing through his mind. Jason was once more glad he was wearing a helmet covering his entire face. No way in hell would Jason ever let Bruce see how much that caught him off guard.

And then Bruce – Batman – was gone and Jason took a few seconds to collect himself before blatantly ignoring the order and getting the fuck out of there. If Bruce had seriously expected Jason to just sit tight and wait for him to return to kick his ass, the Caped Crusader had another thing coming. Gone were the days where Jason would blindly follow Bruce’s orders. Although, arguably he’d never really been good at following any orders at any point in his life.

So, Jason got up, got out, used a portable scanner, that Roy had built, to check for trackers, and then sped back to his apartment. The kids would be safe. Jason could say a lot of bad things about Batman and Robin but they’d at least make sure innocent children wouldn’t get caught up in the fight. So Jason left them to it.

Once he stepped inside his apartment door, Jason pulled up his phone, plugged a single earbud in his ear, and called a number he knew by heart, thus leaving his hands free to find his getaway bag and start packing a few other things into it. He knew that the person on the other end would pick up in a heartbeat cause it wasn’t exactly often that Jason called, especially not considering that the last time they spoke had ended with Jason storming out.

“ _Jay? You alright?_ ” Roy’s slightly concerned voice sounded from the other end and Jason had to physically stop what he was doing to consider that. No. No he was not fucking alright.

“Yeah, nah, just letting you know that I am leaving Gotham. Will be at your place sometime tomorrow, so I hope you’ve fucking bought a couch,” Jason told his friend. In Jason’s opinion, he was doing a really good job at keeping his voice level and not showcasing the fact that he was shaking. Physically shaking. Yep, would you look at that? He was really not alright.

“ _Wait, Jay, Jason, slow down a bit, yeah? You are doing what, when, where, and why?_ ” Roy asked, his voice calm, calming, which was very unlike how they usually spoke. But it worked. Kinda.

“Bruce knows. He fucking knows! Saw me just half an hour ago, so I’m out. I’m not going back to Blackgate, Roy, that ain’t happening! I gotta go,” Jason told him hurriedly as he looked at two of his bigger guns. Should he bring them? They’d been kinda expensive and would be a waste to just leave behind. Yeah. They were going in the bag.

“ _Whoa, hey, Jaybird. Do me a favour, alright? Sit down? Just sit down and start from the beginning,_ ” Roy said and automatically, Jason followed the request, sitting down heavily on his bed. And he told Roy everything.

Starting from purchasing the apartment under his amazing alias Todd Harper, to when Tim caught him on that rooftop, and finally finishing with Bruce glaring him down, Jason told Roy every detail. Meanwhile, Roy stayed quiet, reacting only in way of making Jason sure that he was still there, still listening. And as Jason stopped talking, Roy was quick to jump in.

“ _Okay, that last bit does sound bad but what about everything else? Jay, you do realise you got Tim on your side, right?_ ” Roy asked, obviously seeing something that Jason didn’t. “ _Sure, you’re always welcome to crash on my couch that I definitely have bought but for now, try to take a step back from the situation._ ”

“And how do I know that? Why would Tim even want to take my side? Roy, Bruce _knows_! I can’t stay!” Jason exclaimed, trying to force down the panic slowly rising through his chest. “This was a horrible idea from the get go and I still don’t see how you and Kori thought everything would magically be okay!”

“ _You’re still safe, aren’t you? You’re not in Blackgate and you are not going back to Blackgate. Kori and I will fucking break you out before they can even show you to your cell, you know we will. But right now you are in a safe location where Bruce won’t find you because you covered your tracks,_ ” Roy said, still somehow keeping his calm and Jason felt himself slowly relax because of it. Mainly because if Roy thought things were bad he wouldn’t be able to sound that calm. Arguments aside, Jason trusted his friend’s judgement.

“Tim could tell him,” Jason said quietly, not really believing that sentiment. Because Tim hadn’t outed him so far. But that might change! Because now Bruce did know, and then it was just a question about who Tim didn’t want to let down. Jason didn't think he'd be winning that competition.

“ _Jay,_ ” Roy scoffed from the other end. “ _The kiddo isn’t gonna out you._ ”

“And how do you know that?” Jason asked accusingly. If Roy had actually been there in person he would’ve been glaring at him now. Instead, Jason settled for glaring at the wall.

“ _Cause, you said Dick found out, right? Do you see Dick in your apartment?_ ” Roy asked drily.

“… No…” Jason confirmed albeit very reluctantly.

“ _And he had every opportunity to find out where we were going after that mission. Did we end up getting chased by the Bat-plane-jet-whatever he calls it now?_ ” Roy continued.

“… No…” Jason repeated begrudgingly. “But-”

“ _But nothing, Jay. And if he does out you, which I really don’t think he will, then we’re sending Kori after him,_ ” Roy said resolutely, drawing a small laughter from Jason because he wouldn’t wish Kori on his worst enemy. Or wait. He would. He most certainly would. Kori was terrifying.

“Okay,” Jason said, finding himself nodding.

“ _Oh and I’m gonna catch the next plane to Gotham,_ ” Roy continued and if Jason knew him, and he did, Roy was shrugging. “ _If things go to hell then I’ll have your back and we can make our epic escape, blowing shit up as we speed out of the city. It’ll be great._ ”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll uh… I’ll make up the couch for you,” Jason found himself saying, just a bit caught off guard at how that conversation had turned around. With Roy now being the one coming over and Jason offering up his couch. That… hadn’t been the purpose of that call. That was the opposite of why he called. Not that Jason was complaining, things could be worse.

“ _I’ll let you know when I’ll be landing, alright? You just sit tight. Maybe text Tim a heads up? Let him know what’s up?_ ” Roy suggested. Yeah, no, Jason wasn’t gonna do that. Mostly because he didn’t exactly know what to even write and just sending ‘he knows’ seemed a bit too ominous. God, Jason _really_ needed that drink.

However, as it happened, a few hours later Jason got a text from Tim. A very unexpected text to say the least:

‘So, Alfred wants me to tell you that 

you’re invited to dinner at the manor 

tomorrow at 6.’ 

Jason just stared at his phone for a good, solid minute. He was WHAT?!


	6. Tim Drake

Tim was both curious and sort of annoyed as he stepped into the Batcave. Bruce had, ten minutes ago, called a Code Black, which usually meant some kind of terrible force or villain was threatening the city and as such everyone in the Batfamily was required to meet in the Batcave for a briefing. So Tim wasn’t all that surprised to find Alfred and Barbara there already. Bruce was, of course, nowhere to be seen. He’d make a dramatic entrance once they’d all gathered, obviously.

“Any of you got an idea why we’re here?” a voice behind him asked. Tim turned around just to see Steph and Cass entering, the former being the one who had spoken.

“Maybe. Bruce wouldn’t elaborate,” Barbara said. Tim narrowed his eyes at her. Yeah, she definitely knew but whatever it was she didn't want to be the one to share it. So in her eyes, not critical enough to really warrant a Code Black. That or... 

“Bruce told you not to tell us, right?” Tim asked, winning a strained yet apologetic smile from the first Batgirl. Meanwhile, he noticed that Cass had her head slightly tilted, clearly deciphering Barbara’s body language because the latter was definitely hiding something.

“Considering the bits of conversation I picked up over the comms… I've got a pretty good idea,” Barbara sighed before shooting Tim a knowing look. “You would know too.”

And now they were all looking at him for answers. Well, with the way that she’d put it this whole thing could only be about Jason. “Miss Stephanie, Miss Cassandra, despite the circumstances, I am delighted to see you both tonight. However, Master Timothy, a word upstairs, please.”

Thank the universe for Alfred. Well, usually that tone and choice of words meant that Tim was in trouble. With Alfred. Which was a million times worse than just being in trouble. But in that moment, Tim was just glad to have an excuse to leave before Stephanie could start assaulting him with questions. So he followed Alfred to the lift, for once not bothering to change out of the suit before going upstairs and Alfred didn't seem to contest that decision so Tim guessed it would be fine.

“Master Richard told me,” Alfred started once they were sure the others weren’t about to listen in. Not that it would really matter because as this was going they would all know within the hour. “About Jason Todd.”

“Alfred, I-” Tim started cautiously because fucking hell he did not want to break his promise to Jason. However, this was Alfred. And Dick had already told him.

“I don’t need an explanation. Just… how is he?” Alfred asked, for a brief moment looking his age and Tim’s resolve to not go into detail crumbled right then and there.

“Good. He’s good. A lot like how you used to describe him in your stories except not as… carefree, more guarded,” Tim said slowly, glancing quickly at Alfred only to immediately look away because was Alfred crying? Shit, he hadn’t meant to make him cry! Quick, change the subject slightly. “If Bruce is planing to go after Jason I won’t be a part of it.”

“Neither will I,” Alfred said resolutely. “I lost him once. If there is any chance to get him back, if he is as you say, I will personally see to it that Master Bruce leaves the poor boy alone.”

Jason was hardly a boy anymore, Tim would argue, but at least he had Alfred on his side. So the discussion that was about to be had could either go really well or really badly depending on who sided with who. With Alfred disapproving, Bruce would at least have to think twice before going after Jason, unless he wanted cold food and the quietly scornful stare that Alfred had perfected over time. Yep, so far Team Leave Jason Sort of Alone but Not Completely had a very strong ally. Now they needed a shorter and more catchy name to win over Stephanie.

“Let us return to the others, Master Timothy, and see if we can undo the damage caused by Master Bruce calling a Code Black,” Alfred said, motioning for them to take the lift back down.

Which they did, just in time to see Dick almost falling off his bike as he dismounted. See, if Tim had been on speaking terms with Dick in that moment he would’ve rushed over to support him, but he wasn’t and so he didn’t.

“Damn, looking good, Dick,” Stephanie taunted, laughing at the other's obvious predicament all the while Alfred rushed to Dick’s side.

“Shut up,” Dick grunted, sitting down heavily in the chair Alfred helped him to. “Please.”

“What happened to you?!” Barbara asked, wheeling over to check the hurt vigilante over.

“He obviously got his ass handed to him, right Cass?” Stephanie grinned, elbowing her friend who was quietly smirking. Okay, Tim had to admit, it was just a little satisfying to see Dick like that.

“Fine, yes, I did! Happy? Now stop yelling already,” Dick winced as Barbara shined a light in his eyes.

“And that’s a concussion,” Barbara sighed. “You know the drill, no fighting, no screens, and you’re staying in the manor where Alfred can wake you up once every hour.”

“Not like I got my own place in Gotham yet…” Dick mumbled which had Steph gasp in gleeful surprise and subsequently making Dick wince in pain.

“You’re moving back to Gotham!” Stephanie exclaimed, pointing at Dick who had his eyes closed while trying to just breathe. Tim leaned back and prepared to see just exactly how this was going to turn out.

“You are?” Barbara asked quietly, as if in a stupor. Quickly, she seemed to collect herself. “No matter. Who did this?”

Dick winced once more, this time not because of the volume. Sighing quietly, he opened his eyes and was about to tell them who had handed his ass to him, as Steph had so eloquently put it, when his gaze settled on Tim. All of a sudden, the words seemed to die on his tongue, meaning that Tim would most likely get a very interesting tale should he later choose to ask Jason about a presumed run-in with Nightwing.

The fact that Dick shut up about the identity of his opponent also meant that he hadn’t been the one who’d told Bruce. However, if Dick thought that changed anything he had another thing coming. Tim couldn’t even look at him without feeling ill, anger weighing his chest down uncomfortably. Dammit, why did Dick have to stick his nose into every little issue he detected? If they'd just kept on minding their own businesses about this the argument would've never happened and Tim could've continued ignoring the problem. Sure, that wasn't the healthiest way to deal with it, Tim was very aware of that fact, but it had worked so far.

“No one,” Dick sighed dejectedly, finally looking away. “Can we just get Bruce and Little D here to tell us the no doubt world-threatening danger we need to deal with so I can go upstairs and sleep? For an hour?”

The last bit was no doubt added solely for Barbara and Alfred’s benefit because the both of them where looking very unhappy with Dick in that moment.

Of course, this was when Bruce “Batman” Wayne decided to make his dramatic entrance, dropping from the rafters in the Batcave, closely followed by Damian. Typical, Tim thought to himself, barely managing to keep from rolling his eyes. He had been adopted into a family of theatrics and dramatic entrances.

“Tim,” Bruce began, eyes narrowed behind that cowl of his and Tim felt himself shrink just a few inches. “I am very disappointed in you.”

Yeah, well, what’s new? Tim did not say that out loud. No, what he did choose to reply with was probably a bit worse. “Really? So sorry, I only closed that deal at Wayne Enterprises for five million dollars. Will go for the ten to fifteen next time.”

Bruce paused at the sarcastic retort, the cave having gone dead quiet because it wasn’t often Tim decided to talk back when Bruce was lecturing him, when anyone was lecturing him. Tim just didn’t want to bother if it wasn’t a matter he truly wanted to defend but right now, in that moment, Tim was already pissed.

“You know damn well this isn’t about Wayne Enterprises but the fact that you not only disobeyed a direct order but kept the fact that Jason Todd is back in Gotham a secret!” Bruce yelled, determinedly advancing a few steps. Tim really hoped Dick’s headache was killing him right about now.

“Direct order? Was that the thing you yelled at me when I got back from my mission with the Outlaws? Where we stopped a group of people wanting to throw us back to the dark ages?” Tim asked bitingly, crossing his arms defensively but holding his ground. “Sorry, wasn’t listening.”

Now they were all staring at Tim incredulously. Well, all but Dick, who was trying not to puke over the floor, and Alfred, who seemed to be shaking his head in defeat.

“That is quite enough, both of you!” Alfred yelled, coming to stand between them before Bruce could start really yelling at Tim, or worse, start an actual fistfight. Right now Tim wouldn't put it past him because Bruce looked livid. “Master Bruce, the boy has done nothing wrong. And Master Timothy, are you _trying_ to start a fight?”

Well, yes, Tim realised. Against his better judgement, he had been. There was a beat of silence in which everyone seemed to look at each other, not quite sure where to go from there.

“Uh… wasn’t Jason the guy who tried to kill you?” Steph asked, breaking the silence with a question directed at Tim who sighed and nodded. “Why the fuck are you hanging out with someone who tried to murder you?!”

Steph did not notice how Cass slightly recoiled at that, nor the fact that Damian seemed to be looking at anything but them right now. Tim, however, just sent her a deadpan look.

“He was brainwashed. By the Lazarus Pit and Talia al Ghul,” Tim summarised because he was getting kinda tired of telling people things they should already know. Okay, it wasn’t Steph’s fault that she hadn’t been there for that whole ordeal so Tim continued a little less harshly. “And he’s doing a lot better now. When I went on that mission with the Outlaws they’d switched to using non-lethal force. So sometime before that they’d sat down and decided to not kill people. On their own.”

“Oh,” Steph said, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“He was also a major crime lord in East End where he killed recklessly,” Bruce said. “And when I had him submitted to Arkham they found him sane. How do we know he’s not planning on picking up where he left of?”

Good point, and hadn’t Tim already kind of asked Jason that to his face? Yeah, Bruce most likely wouldn’t accept the answer ‘cause he promised not to’ as valid.

“He’s not,” a strained voice spoke up. Tim turned to look at Dick who now looked awfully uncomfortable with the sudden attention. “I’m not gonna defend what Jason did in the past but he kinda helped save Tim when he was kidnapped yesterday. I doubt he’d have cared if he was planning on going back to being a mob boss.”

“Not to mention, he found it exhausting, his words,” Tim supplied and continued before Bruce could come up with another argument for why they should all head out to arrest Jason: “Look, he’s doing better. At least give him a chance to prove that.”

Bruce stood as still as a statue, the whole room looking to him. He was nearly impossible to read when he was like this, which was why Tim didn’t even bother trying. Instead he waited for the inevitable conclusion to this discussion where Bruce would push away all the evidence that didn’t fit with his version of the story and go through with this Code Black business. Well, he would have to count Tim out.

“Master Bruce, I for one think that we should give the boy the benefit of the doubt,” Alfred said, walking to the man he had basically raised just to put a hand on his shoulder. “If there is just a chance of getting Jason back… shouldn’t we take it?”

And that was the moment Tim realised that Bruce was staring at the glass case. The one holding Jason’s robin costume. Suddenly the clenched jaw made a lot of sense. Shit.

“Why don’t we vote on it?” Barbara asked, seemingly deciding to be the voice of reason even if her actual voice was a bit thick with emotions as well. “I think we should wait and see. How long has he even been here without us knowing?”

“A few months,” Tim replied automatically. “And I obviously think we should give him a chance.”

“So do I,” Alfred smiled sadly.

The others looked at each other, as if thinking over how to vote, at least until Cass stepped up. “I… trust Tim’s… judgement.”

Tim offered his usually silent sister a smile as well as a quiet ‘thank you’ to which she nodded back with a brief smile of her own. He hadn’t been exactly sure where she stood considering how close she was with Bruce but apparently she had his back. That counted for something and Tim wasn't about to forget it anytime soon.

“If Cass is backing this then so am I,” Steph proclaimed, skewing the vote in favour of Team Give Jason a Chance Dammit. Hey, it was at least shorter this time. Steph still wouldn’t approve though.

“I’m still undecided,” Dick said, possibly because he didn’t want to outright vote in favour of someone who had, allegedly, beat him up. Or because he still had doubts about Jason. Could be either one.

“I’m with father,” Damian voiced even if the vote was already decided.

Bruce seemed to have reached the same conclusion because he sighed heavily, turning his gaze away from the old Robin suit. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

The sentence hung in the air, daring any of them to challenge it. If Tim hadn’t already kind of won the discussion he probably would’ve done exactly that but now there was no need to. Also, they all knew how much Bruce loved his dramatic pauses.

“But,” Bruce continued solemnly. “You all seem to have made up your minds. Fine. None of us will go after Jason but I don’t want him in the Batcave.”

That… went much better than Tim had expected, and with a lot less yelling too. Which only left the question of how they were going to give Jason a chance. Knowing the others they wouldn’t exactly leave Jason alone, or well, Steph wouldn’t leave Jason alone.

“Now, I think the best course of action would be to invite Master Jason over for dinner to show that we mean no ill will,” Alfred concluded, forcefully ignoring the scoff from Dick’s general direction as well as Bruce’s blatant need to be anywhere else. All of which only made Alfred raise his voice ever so slightly. “A dinner you all will be required to attend.”

“Sure, I’ll come meet this Jason. What’s he like?” Steph asked, completely neglecting to register that dinner was mandatory. Although, Tim did see what she was doing. If she agreed to go then she wouldn’t feel like she was there just because she was forced. And Steph _was_ currently a poor college student and this _was_ free food. Amazing, home cooked, free food.

“You two will get along, I think. Same kind of humour,” Tim shrugged, already hearing both Dick and Barbara groan because they’d known Jason and had probably drawn the same conclusion as Tim had. Steph and Jason would catch on like a house on fire and while that thought left everyone in the room slightly unsettled it wasn’t like they’d hurt anyone. Well... not anyone who hadn’t deserved it in some way.

“Master Timothy, would you let Jason know that he is invited to dinner at the mansion at 6 tomorrow evening?” Alfred asked with a small smile. Seemed like Tim was going to play the messenger.

“Sure,” Tim agreed because it really wasn’t a problem to just shoot Jason a text telling him exactly that. Also, when Alfred asked politely, the entire Batfamily generally tried to do as he asked. When he didn’t ask politely then the Bats feared for their lives.

But what did surprise Tim was that Jason called not even five minutes later as everyone were starting to leave, Damian having trailed after Bruce and Cass seemed to have just vanished, much to Steph’s annoyance.

“Tim speaking,” Tim said calmly. He should’ve expected the phone call really but somehow he’d just gotten used to texting.

“ _I’m not going_ ,” Jason’s voice sounded calm and even, if a bit rushed.

“Really? I’m sure Alfred would rather hear that from you in person. Do you want me to give him the phone?” Tim asked, already anticipating what the other’s answer was gonna be.

“ _No! Don’t you fucking dare, Replacement!_ ” Jason panicked. Yeah, that was only ever gonna be a no.

“You sure? He’s right here, it wouldn’t be a problem,” Tim continued, smirking slightly. By now he was just taunting the poor guy for the fun of it, even if Alfred had suddenly taken a very apt interest in the conversation Tim was having.

“ _I swear that if you hand over that phone I will fucking kill you, Timothy_ ,” Jason threatened albeit not very convincingly. “ _Just… just text me his number and I’ll… I don’t fucking know, I’ll let him know my answer, okay?_ ”

Okay, Jason clearly didn’t care for Tim’s threat to hand the phone over and so Tim dropped the teasing, walking away from the others as he spoke. “Alright, but he’s on your side, you know? So is Barbara.”

Jason stayed silent on the line for a long while, long enough for Tim to start wondering if he’d just hung up on him after hearing the ‘alright’. At least until he spoke again, voice quiet and so unlike the Jason Tim had come to know. “ _I can’t. It’s at the manor; Bruce will be there._ ”

“I doubt it, or well, he might show up for the first course since Alfred did tell us dinner was mandatory,” Tim said, knowing that Bruce would likely activate the cameras he’d installed in the manor for security reasons and then retreat to the Cave, the one place Jason was banned from.

“ _That’s still one too many_ ,” Jason said. “ _If Bruce’s there I won’t be_.”

“You do realise everyone but you is being practically forced to attend this, right?” Tim asked because for some reason he could already see how this was gonna go and he didn’t like it one bit.

“ _That sounds like a you problem_ ,” Jason observed and while he was technically right, Tim frowned. A frown which only deepened as he, from Jason’s end, heard what sounded suspiciously like an airport announcement. “ _Just text me Alfred’s number. Look, I can’t talk for much longer._ ”

“You… aren’t about to skip town, are you?” Tim asked quietly, suspicious of the others listening in considering they already knew he was talking to Jason. At least, Tim assumed they knew.

“ _What? No! Would I do that_?” Jason answered just a second too fast. Tim went completely still, closing his eyes to deal with the disappointment rushing through him. It wasn’t so much that Jason might be skipping town that got to him but more the fact that if he did he wouldn’t tell Tim. But it made sense, logically.

“Yes.”

“ _Alright, yeah, I thought about it but I’m not. Not right now anyways. And I would tell you, after. We did make a deal that I’d inform you and you’d look after East End if I left, Timmers. I’m a man of my word_ ,” Jason reminded him. “ _But I really do have to go. Later._ ”

“Yeah, later,” Tim replied, choosing to trust Jason on his word as the call was ended. Returning to the centre of the Cave, Tim was met by Steph staring at him expectantly. “What?”

“So? He showing up or not?” she asked, crossing her arms. At least Alfred was nowhere to be seen and so he wouldn’t hear the next sentence leaving Tim’s mouth.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Tim shrugged, an air of indifference to the motion. He could’ve told her how panicked Jason had sounded just at the prospect of talking to Alfred, or mentioned the very obvious airport background noise, but all of that really wasn’t any of Steph’s business.

Which was exactly why he’d already prepared an answer to her next question: “Why not?”

“He’s busy,” Tim replied easily. “By the way, how is college?”

“I know you’re trying to change the subject and wouldn’t have asked if that wasn’t the case but college is fine, also stressful but mostly fine,” Steph replied and Tim had to hide his frown. Sure, it’d been really obvious, especially since she knew him, but still. “Why? You changed your mind about getting a degree? Cause I think they require people to actually have their high school diploma to even be considered.”

Tim rolled his eyes, choosing to interpret her barb as a joke. “Ha ha, very funny. You suggest I quit my job and go back to school? Yeah, I’m not about to give the board of directors at Wayne Enterprises the satisfaction.”

“They giving you a hard time?” Steph asked, sounding suddenly cautious which Tim really didn’t think was required here. He was fine. Even if he appreciated the sentiment that Steph might show up and yell at the stuffed up bureaucrats. If she didn’t just decide to punch them that is.

“They tried when I first started. Stopped within a month though when they realised I didn’t care and actually had solutions to some of the problems the company had,” Tim shrugged. It hadn’t really been that big of a deal so there was no reason to get other people involved in it. Of course the Board was going to have doubts about the 18 year old son of the person who basically ran the company suddenly being handed a very demanding position at said company. It was only natural and Tim was doing his best to make sure their worst fears about one such situation weren’t realised. So, maybe he didn’t necessarily need to take on the work equivalent to three people but that was neither here nor there.

“You just give me their names and I’ll make sure to Spoil their evening,” Steph grinned, making a show of cracking her knuckles and all of a sudden Tim was reminded that they’d been friends before they’d become more. Before they’d become nothing.

“Aren’t you Batgirl now?” Tim asked, smiling wistfully.

“Yeah, but I think I still got an old Spoiler suit stashed away somewhere,” Steph grinned and sure, she was joking now but Tim knew her well enough to also know that she’d make good on her promise to Spoil the board members’ evenings.

“Of course you do,” Tim sighed, still smiling as he shook his head. “And about school, I didn’t just ask to change the subject.”

“So you admit you wanted to change the subject!” she exclaimed triumphantly, earning another eye-roll from Tim.

“Sure,” Tim smiled. “But what I was trying to say is: I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch.”

Steph fell silent for a brief moment, crossing her arms as she offered him a wry smile. “Yeah, me too.”

If Tim had been an optimistic man he might’ve taken his chances and asked her out but he knew the answer already. That ship had sailed, as one tended to put it, and surprisingly, that was alright with Tim. They didn’t have to be more, and really, neither of them were sure they even wanted to, but dammit if he hadn’t missed having her as his friend.

“Well, I’m gonna head home,” Tim said as he started walking towards his bike. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you. And try to actually get some sleep for once, coffee addict,” Steph called back.

Tim glanced over his shoulder just to see her heading towards the lift, probably so she could see if Alfred could find her a bed for the night cause it _had_ gotten pretty late. Or early depending on who you asked. But other than that he didn’t acknowledge her jab at his coffee addiction, which he freely admitted was a thing. It wasn’t like it was a problem for him. He was functioning like a semi-normal human being. At least that’s what he told himself as he started the drive home, already knowing that he had too much work that needed doing to bother with sleep. Such was life.

Turned out that Tim was, in fact, right about Jason not showing up for dinner at the mansion. Of course, Jason had also told him as much himself but there had always been that tiny sliver of belief in Alfred’s ability to make anyone do things they didn’t want for the greater good. Like, the dishes. Or setting a table for a three course meal, complete with folded napkins.

So the fact that they’d all spent a few hours gathered around a table in a sort of tense atmosphere, all sending glances at the empty plate between Tim and Steph’s seats, wasn’t all that surprising. No, what was a surprise was that Jason didn’t show up to dinner the next evening when Alfred made them all attend again. Nor did he appear the evening after that when the same thing happened and this was the exact pattern Tim had been dreading.

Well, Tim thought to himself as he suited up after the third ‘family dinner’ as Steph and Barbara had affectionately dubbed the mistake that was mandatory dinner, despite them being the only two who weren’t officially adopted into the damn family. It was time actually go tell Jason what he was missing. Which was why Tim, half an hour later, entered Jason’s apartment through the door to the small balcony.

“You missed dinner, again,” Tim said, glancing over the room only to pause slightly as he saw the second figure at the dinner table. “Oh, hi Roy.”

“Heya Timmy,” Roy greeted him through the mouthful of lasagna that seemed to hold most of his attention for the moment.

Jason, however, looked up with a slight scowl. “No, I politely declined a dinner invitation, again.”

“You do realise Alfred is gonna keep inviting you, right?” Tim asked, overall just slightly concerned because he wasn’t sure how long he was gonna be able to deal with this domestic take on a Mexican standoff.

“Jay… why do I get the feeling that you are purposefully avoiding an event that could lead to us not having to flee the city?” Roy asked quietly, looking at Jason who for all intends and purposes seemed like he didn’t want to be there right now.

“I already told you, if Bruce is there I won’t be,” Jason shot back. It took one look at Jason’s hunched shoulders and threatening glare for Tim to decide that the best strategy was backing down. Kind of. For now.

Tim shrugged, drawing up a chair by the table. “I think you would’ve wanted to be there yesterday though, if only to witness Cass almost skewering Dick with a fork.”

“Who the fuck is Cass?” Jason growled, clutching his own fork somewhat threateningly.

“Cassandra, she was Batgirl before Stephanie, now she’s Black Bat, doesn’t talk much, at least not in a traditional sense,” Tim explained calmly. “She’s been out of the country for a while.”

And now she was back for an indefinite amount of time it would seem. The media was gonna have a field day with that. Wayne’s daughter back from abroad. Tim almost wanted to enlist Roy and Jason’s help in getting him declared legally dead as well just so he wouldn’t have to deal with reporters and journalists bombarding him with even more questions than usual.

“Still not going, but good try. Next time, record it,” Jason said and honestly, Tim probably would’ve recorded it if he hadn’t been a little too busy trying to restrain Cass. It’d taken him, Steph, Bruce, and Damian to forcibly delay and unarm her while Dick fled the room.

“Sure, if I can,” Tim promised knowing that it most likely wouldn’t happen again, and if it did, Dick would actually get skewered by that fork because Cass learned from her mistakes and didn’t make the same one twice. “So is Kori here too?”

“Nah, she’s off-planet right now on some super secret mission that she totally didn’t tell me about,” Roy said, shit-eating grin telling Tim that Kori had told Roy everything. “And I, of course, didn’t share this super secret information I don’t know with my good friend, Jay, here.”

Tim regarded the archer callously because he knew irony and that was certainly it. “I’m not even going to ask.”

“Good, cause we couldn’t tell you,” Jason smirked, clearly trying to imply that they didn’t know. Tim just replied by sending him the most deadpan look he could muster.

Maintaining both eye contact and, subsequently, the look he was giving Jason, Tim got out of the chair. “I’m gonna raid your kitchen for coffee.”

There was a beat of silence where both Jason and Roy just sat there, Jason genuinely having to pause for the words to register because this was the first time Tim had actively declared that he was gonna do that, and Roy already grinning in anticipation. Because, Tim was by the kitchen before any words could even leave Jason’s mouth.

“Tim! I swear to god, if you steal my good thermos one more time I will fucking kill you!” Jason called out to the sleep deprived vigilante who just grinned and shook his head. Never mind that Jason was right there, Tim knew he wasn’t gonna get up and stop him. However, he didn’t steal Jason’s thermos, although the thought was very tempting, no, Tim instead grabbed one of the disposable cups that Jason had at some point acquired after Tim had stolen the thermos at least five times.

“So uh… this happens often?” Roy asked, still grinning despite Jason’s attempts to kick him under the table. Yeah, Tim did notice that. Not like Jason was trying to be subtle about it.

“He’s like a bad rash, keeps coming back,” Jason muttered, having given up on kicking his friend.

“It’s easier to drop by your place to get coffee than mine,” Tim remarked off-handedly. It was by his patrol route. And really, he’d needed the coffee after that ‘family dinner’.

“It _really_ isn’t,” Jason grumbled but he still hadn’t thrown Tim out so he was at least tolerating him. And considering that the kettle was already on, the water boiling, the instant coffee on the table, and Jason hadn’t gotten up to make coffee for himself or Roy, well, Tim didn’t get the feeling that he was entirely unwelcome. Just like he hadn’t been kicked out that night when he didn’t want to go back to his own place.

Which reminded Tim… well, he’d already thanked Jason for giving Dick a concussion. Via text when Jason had seemed to know just a bit too much about the fact that Dick was even injured. It was much easier to avoid talking to his older brother when said brother wasn’t able to actually catch up whenever Tim made his escape after dinner.

Sure, Dick could use the dinner to actually corner Tim but neither of them had told the rest of the family about the fight and at this point Tim just really couldn’t be bothered. He’d work with Dick on patrol if he had to but other than that he didn’t want to be ambushed or coddled or made to feel like he was being angry for no reason. Although, to his credit, Dick wouldn’t intentionally do the latter but it was obvious that the older thought he’d been in the right which, rationally… No, Tim did not want to even think about that right now.

“I need to get going,” Tim said unenthusiastically. It wasn’t that he didn’t like patrolling, no, quite the contrary or he just wouldn’t do it, but that on top of being forced to socialise for three days straight, and after the fight with Dick, well, it really wasn’t going to work for Tim in the long run. He was tired. So if you added the reporters he’d no doubt have to deal with in about ten hours when he went to work… Tim could already feel the exhaustion set in.

“Then take your coffee and go, Timbers, we’re not keeping you,” Jason said, coming off a bit ruder than usual but Tim was fairly certain whatever annoyance Jason was feeling wasn’t because of him. Mostly because Jason’s phone had just pinged to let him know that he had gotten a message. Tim was at least 80 percent sure that that was Alfred texting Jason about dinner tomorrow.

“Alright,” Tim said, rolling his eyes before turning to Roy who was currently frowning at Jason. “It was nice to see you again, Roy.”

“Same to you, kid,” Roy replied easily, offering Tim a short smile. He was most definitely going to make Jason tell him more about the whole dinner things. Whoops, Tim thought, not feeling the least bit sorry.

Oh well, maybe Roy would have more luck convincing Jason to go than Alfred had had so far.

Nope.

A week went by. Then two weeks. And Tim was at the end of his damn rope. His prediction about the reporters had been correct; they had picked up on the daily visits to the manor that each of Bruce Wayne’s adopted children were making. Of course, none of the media knew why which in turn meant that they had been ruthlessly pestering them all. Well, except for Cass but that wasn’t for lack of trying. Cass was just very good at disappearing. And staring blankly at reporters until they left her alone.

There was only so much small talk that the Wayne family could engage in and Tim really didn’t want to resort to asking _Damian_ about his day. At this point, Cass had run out of ways to annoy all of the people present, Stephanie wasn’t much better off and was very much complaining about Jason being a no-show, Barbara would have liked to be there for every dinner but her father would start asking questions that they all knew she didn’t want to answer, Bruce was sulking because of course he was, and Damian was Damian.

Oh, and Tim still didn’t feel like talking to Dick which the rest of the family had picked up on about a week ago and now Stephanie, Barbara, and Alfred were trying to solve something that Tim knew couldn’t be solved just like that. It especially wouldn’t be solved by forcing the two of them to talk about it because neither of them were willing to.

So Tim was done. He was beyond exhausted and about ready for the dinners to just be over with so his family could go back to their normal lives and he could ignore all of them for a good solid three days. The reporters would also most likely stop pestering him with questions about his elusive sister who was ‘back in Gotham, is she going to stay, do you have any comments’.

Which was exactly why Tim barged into Jason’s apartment in the middle of the day, almost breathing a sigh of relief when he noticed that Roy wasn’t there. His things were, but he wasn’t. Jason, however, was.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?” Jason asked, obviously taken aback by Tim’s sudden appearance. Yeah, well, he was probably gonna keep being surprised, Tim thought grimly.

“I need you to go to the dinner,” Tim said, ignoring the initial question because he was just about done with small talk. Did that even count as small talk? Fuck if Tim knew. “Seriously, if I can guarantee Bruce won’t be there can you just _please_ show up? I am begging you.”

“Hold your horses here, Timbers,” Jason said, crossing his arms as he narrowed his eyes at Tim. “What’s in it for me? And why so desperate?”

“You get to see Alfred? And I’ll owe you a favour. No questions asked,” Tim offered quickly. He’d been going over what to say on the drive to Jason’s apartment and that was the best he could come up with. Still, Jason’s eyes widened just a fraction, his demeanour shifting from suspicious to… startled? Never mind. Tim knew he needed to convince Jason now. While he was still surprised. And that meant using honesty. “Jason, I can’t handle this much socialisation, I am going crazy. And I can’t tell Alfred I’m busy, I just can’t, he’ll know I’m lying! But this is too much and I might’ve just walked out on a board meeting because the press found a way into the hallway and the next time one of them asks me about my personal life I might actually use an EMP to short circuit their equipment. So please. Roy is invited too.”

For a long moment, Jason just stared at Tim, dumbstruck because he had never seen him like that. Well that was because usually Tim didn’t want to be around people when that happened but that wasn’t a fucking option currently, now was it?

“Fine, fuck, I’ll be there tonight,” Jason sighed, glaring at Tim. “But I can’t make 6. So you better make sure it’s moved to 7 or something because I am not showing up to one of Alfred’s dinners with tardiness as my first offence.”

“Deal,” Tim replied before Jason could start changing his mind. He’d find a way to make sure Bruce wasn’t there and Alfred moved the dinner. It was doable. Another week of this was not. “Thank you. So much.”

Jason paused, eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly. “Sure… no problem…”

So what if Jason looked at Tim like he was worried about his sanity. Right then and there Tim didn’t care. He’d found a way out of the misery that had been his life for the past two weeks and it’d only cost him his dignity and a favour to be called in at a later date. Which was... not ideal but better than his sanity.

“You… want something to eat?” Jason suggested cautiously, snapping Tim out of his thoughts. Right. He might’ve spaced out a bit but as the question actually registered, Tim could only grimace.

“No. Nope. I am leaving. See you tonight,” Tim replied, knowing that he was rude as he briskly walked out of Jason’s apartment but just the thought of more socialising… Tim shuddered. No. Not even Jason’s cooking would make it worth it.

Shooting a quick text to Alfred about Jason’s acceptance on the premise that Bruce wasn’t going to be there, Tim hurriedly walked to his motorcycle. He also added that Roy would attend too and then Tim put away his phone, got on his bike, and drove home to sleep because there was no way he would be able to work, not to mention deal with the fallout of walking out on a board meeting in session, right that moment. It would just have to wait for after. For tomorrow. When hopefully things would be sort of back to normal and Tim would have a day, just one day, where he didn’t have to deal with talking to people.


	7. Jason Todd

As the door to Jason’s apartment all but slammed behind Tim, Jason could only stare, mildly concerned for the younger’s sanity. He’d seemed… very close to losing it, hadn’t even stayed for food when Jason offered. That was the first time Tim had turned down free food at Jason’s. And then Jason fully realised what he’d just agreed to.

Fuck.

Okay, no, he’d be fine. Tim was gonna work his magic and make sure Bruce wasn’t there. Roy would be there too. And from what Tim had told him, cause he hadn’t shut up about the things that had happened at the previous dinners, the Stephanie girl sounded like she’d be a good buffer when conversation died. At least she’d probably laugh if Jason told a joke. So would Roy. Maybe Tim too but Jason wasn’t quite sure about that one since Tim hadn’t really acted like himself.

Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually, Jason reasoned with himself. Alfred was persistent when he wanted to and Jason probably would’ve caved given another few weeks time. And like this he’d gotten a favour out of Tim, one with no questions asked. Jason was sure as hell gonna put that to good use. The nerd usually didn’t throw favours around so fuck yeah Jason would cash in on that. The fact that Tim had broken before Jason meant that he’d still won _something_ from this.

So Jason went back to what he’d been doing before _someone_ so rudely barged into his apartment. About an hour later, Roy showed up, his arms full of various shopping bags and Jason was willing to bet that not a single one of said bags contained items from the stores they’d once belonged to.

“Hope you brought some nice clothes cause you’re gonna need it later,” Jason drawled, focusing back on the task at hand which was assembling a gun that Roy had helped him tweak.

The other vigilante paused in unloading various mechanical parts from a bag that said it belonged to a clothing store. “Wait, does this mean you’re going to the manor? What changed your mind?”

“Yeah and nothing,” Jason shrugged. He did contemplate telling Roy how Tim had dropped by, all out of sorts and begged for him to attend the dinner. He didn’t. Tim got to keep some semblance of his pride. For now. “Just, Alfred would’ve kept at it and Tim said he’d owe me a favour.”

“Knew there was a reason I liked those two,” Roy smirked only to soften said smirk into a smile. “So, you gonna be okay seeing all of them again?”

Jason thought on that. He’d thought a lot about that specific question over the course of the last two weeks and he still wasn’t sure what his answer was. Dick, he’d seen in vigilante gear, had beat the living daylights out of him too so that was bound to make the situation just that bit more tense. If Jason had to see Bruce again then he might just run for the hills. Coming face to face with Batman had been more than enough socialisation with Bruce. Actually, Jason was sure that if he never saw the billionaire again, he’d be okay with that. Or, something like that, Jason relented, ignoring the nagging little voice at the back of his mind.

And Alfred… that’s where Jason wasn’t quite sure. Well that and the whole meeting the new members of the Bat Family. How would Alfred react? Hell, how would _Jason_ react? He didn’t know and that’s what he found so terrifying about this whole dinner thing.

“Don’t know, but that’s why you’re going too,” Jason finally replied, eyes finding Roy just so he could glare at him, dare him to try and weasel his way out of it.

“Wouldn’t dream of standing you up. Although, there are nicer ways to ask someone out, you know?” Roy said, a shit-eating grin on his face and Jason just about managed not to throw a wrench at him. “Wait ‘til I tell Kori about this. She’s gonna be so jealous.”

“She knows that if she’d been here I’d have taken her instead,” Jason shot back, ignoring Roy’s melodramatic gasp that he’d been wounded oh so severely.

Both of them knew that Jason would’ve brought both Kori and Roy but had there been some stupid rule saying he could only bring one of them, he would’ve brought Kori. Nothing against Roy but Jason would grab every chance to see Dick squirm and Jason bringing along Dick’s ex-girlfriend would just about do it. He still could not believe that Kori had ever dated Dick but at least she’d eventually come to her senses.

Only when Jason, hours later, received a text from Alfred, who was asking him to confirm his and Roy’s attendance for dinner at 7 pm, did Jason fully realise that it was real and happening. He might’ve stared at that message for a bit too long before finally composing an affirmative that Alfred would accept. Just sending back a ‘yes’ wouldn’t be enough, if Jason’s memories served him correctly, and Jason was not gonna show up to dinner knowing that he’d sent back a bullshit reply to Alfred’s genuine question.

“This acceptable?” Roy asked, spinning around to show the clothes he’d changed into. Jason looked up from his phone, having just sent his reply to Alfred. The clothes weren’t anything special but then again, neither were the ones Jason was currently wearing.

Jason had to stop himself from immediately replying ‘no’ because between the two of them they really didn’t own any clothes anyone at the manor would consider fine dinner wear. Decent was what they would be going for and as long as it wasn’t dirty, wrinkly, or had holes in it, well, it would have to do… even if decent by Jason and Roy’s standards was _barely_ decent by Alfred’s.

“Sure, and stop spinning already, you’re making me dizzy,” Jason said dismissively only to immediately regret his tone. Roy wasn’t the cause of his stress, if anything, Roy was helping. He’d helped Jason patrol the East End early so they could go back and change before they had to hit the streets again later that night, after dinner. Sure, most criminal activities happened at night but it had eased Jason’s nerves somewhat and the smog that seemed to constantly surround the streets of Gotham had provided them with enough cover. Not good cover but cover nonetheless.

“Jason,” Roy said, snapping Jason out of his thoughts.

“What?” Jason asked back only to be met with a look of concern. Fuck. Had he…?

“I called your name like six times,” Roy explained. Yup, Jason thought grimly, he had. “Are you sure you’re okay to go to this thing?”

No. Jason was most definitely not okay but screw admitting that to one of his best friends. “I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” Roy replied tersely, crossing his arms. Why couldn’t he just let it go?

“It’s not like it matters if I am,” Jason sighed, checking his own outfit over while not bothering with his hair since it would be messed up by his bike helmet anyways. Helmet hair was a look that Jason had learned to live with. And well, he could pull it off pretty well if you asked him. “I’m going.”

“Look, you don’t have to do this, Jay. It’s your choice,” Roy reminded him and Jason had to stop himself from asking where that attitude had been a week ago when Roy had actually tried talking him into going. Sure, the archer had tried being subtle about the hints and conversation topics he’d touched on but Roy was about as subtle as an elephant in a glass store. Okay, that wasn’t fair to Roy. He could be subtle when he needed to but not in any way that would ever fool Jason. They knew each other too well for that.

“I already said I would. Can’t back out now,” Jason explained shortly, shrugging on his leather jacket. “Now, are we going?”

Roy looked at him for a few seconds before nodding and picking up his helmet. “Yeah, just… Jay, you say the word and we’re out of there, alright?”

Jason blinked a few times as the words sunk in. “Sure, alright.”

One thing he knew for sure, he was gonna have to give Roy a damn expensive birthday gift for his next birthday just to make up for the bullshit he had to deal with right now. Cause there was not a shadow of doubt in Jason’s mind that this evening would end up with a bunch of bullshit and possibly a fistfight. That is if Dick felt like going for a second round.

The entire drive there, Jason was for once in his life glad of the horrible traffic. He didn’t run any lights, only drove a little bit over the speed limit, mainly cause Roy was sitting behind him. Sure, they’d driven on one bike multiple times before but usually they were wearing body armour. Also, it would be mortifying to be late cause they were pulled over by the cops. Driving also gave him something other than his thoughts to focus on.

Still, as he pulled up in front of the manor, Jason was hit by both a rush of nostalgia and the overwhelming desire to turn around and floor the pedal. To his credit, he didn’t act on that. No, instead he turned off the motor and dismounted, after Roy of course.

As Jason approached the looming mansion, he briefly considered leaving the motorcycle helmet on only to ultimately decide against it. What an impression that would’ve made, he mentally scoffed. So he pulled it off, stuck it under his arm, and was glad that Roy knew when to stay quiet because right in that moment Jason needed to just breathe, to take it in. God, he’d even briefly considered going in through the Batcave but that would hardly have been polite and Jason really didn’t want to see that place again. No, the front door was a better option, still not good but better.

Okay, he could do this. It was just dinner. It was just people. Tim was in there, probably. Tim would have his back. So would Roy and Roy was standing right there, at a respectable distance, shooting Jason a look that clearly conveyed: ‘come on we don’t got all day’. All he needed to do was knock.

So he did.

A few agonising seconds went by before the door opened and in that moment Jason wanted to both cry and laugh at the same time. Struck by the conflict between the two, he did neither. Instead he could only stare at the butler who didn’t seem to have aged a day, or well, he had but there was still that same air around him. The air telling Jason that it was going to be okay.

“Master Jason, words cannot-” Alfred started saying only to stop as Jason impulsively interrupted by wrapping his arms around him.

A moment went by and Jason was just about to pull back and apologise profusely, mortified that he’d acted like that, when suddenly, to Jason surprise, Alfred hugged him back. Jason, feeling his eyes burning, closed them because that seemed like the only thing he _could_ do. Dammit, he should say something, anything, but no words came to him.

“Words cannot express how relieved I am to see you well,” Alfred muttered quietly and fuck if the old man started crying then Jason would too. Dammit he didn’t want to show up looking like he’d bawled his eyes out. Then the words hit him full force and he wanted to tell Alfred that he wasn’t. Well, that is. But he was alive and that was probably what Alfred had meant.

“I’m…” Jason started, not sure what he even wanted to say, _how_ he wanted to say it. Fuck it. If there was one person he could say this to then it would be Alfred. “I missed you.”

He heard the sharp inhale, felt the way Alfred hugged him even tighter, and all at once Jason wasn’t sure why he hadn’t at least taken contact to Alfred. Wait, no. He knew. It was exactly because of this. Cause Jason felt like a fucking mess and he didn’t know how to deal with it. And fucking hell he did not want Dick or Bruce or the Baby Robin or any of the damn strangers to see him cry.

“I missed you so fucking much,” Jason breathed breathlessly, holding on to Alfred like his life depended on it.

When Alfred replied his voice was barely a whisper: so quiet that if Jason hadn’t been literally hugging the man he wouldn’t have caught it. “I certainly missed you too, Master Jason.”

Slowly, Jason pulled out of the hug, trying to compose himself cause no way was he going to walk into the lion’s den looking like he’d just been crying. Still, Alfred didn’t seem to be much better off. The butler was, however, much faster at pulling himself back together, hastily blinking away what Jason had a sneaking suspicion were tears.

“My apologies for not greeting you yet, Mr. Harper. It is wonderful that you could both join us this evening,” Alfred smiled politely, the only hint of what had happened being the slight redness of his eyes and a few wrinkles on his otherwise immaculate uniform.

“It’s alright, I’m uh… happy to be here?” Roy smiled back proudly. Jason knew that he would no doubt get an earful of ‘I told you so’ when they got back to his apartment but he’d deal with that when he had to and not a second before.

“And we are happy to have you. The others are gathered in the lounge adjacent to the dining hall,” Alfred continued and Jason paused slightly. All of them? “Master Jason, I trust you know the way?”

Jason wanted to frown at that, wanted to say something against the assumption but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Of course he remembered that lounge. He’d been there often enough back when he lived at the manor. Which was why he was unconsciously nodding to Alfred’s question.

Yet, Jason still found himself hesitating as Alfred stepped aside to let them in. The only reason he did end up going through the door was Roy’s presence at his back, the intent behind that not going unnoticed by Jason. Roy had his back. This was getting ridiculous, Jason berated himself.

First thing he noticed was the chandelier in the foyer. It was new. So were the door frames and doors. Wait, had there always been a door there? Jason wasn’t sure but shrugged it off. He hadn’t seen the inside of the manor in years, this was to be expected. However, as he continued towards the lounge, vaguely noticing Alfred closing the door behind them, Jason kept seeing things that he knew without a sliver of doubt hadn’t been there before. Honestly, he didn’t know what he’d expected but this odd feeling of nostalgia mixed with something that just seemed _wrong_ didn’t sit quite right with him. If anything it had him even more on edge.

There was faint chatter from the lounge and Jason briefly glanced to Roy, needing to assure himself that his friend was still there. Said friend offered him a small grin and a thumbs up. Rolling his eyes, Jason turned back to the door. Sure he knew why Roy did that, it was an attempt to lighten the mood if only slightly. It worked, kinda. And then Jason pushed open the door and the lounge fell completely silent. Four people looked up at the two of them. Tim, Dick, Barbara, and a blonde girl he hadn’t seen before. The tension when Jason met Dick’s gaze was nearly palpable.

“Jay, Roy, you made it,” Tim thankfully interrupted and Jason turned his attention to the kid who was closing his laptop. Must’ve been working. At least he looked slightly better than he had earlier but that wasn’t saying much considering he still looked like he was about to drop from exhaustion.

“Said we would,” Jason shrugged, crossing his arms as he debated going further into to room.

“So,” the blonde chick spoke up, nodding to the both of them as she mirrored his stance. “You brought muscle, huh?”

“So what if I did?” Jason shot back with a casual air of ‘try me’. He felt ridiculous, having to enter a stare-off with this vaguely intimidating girl.

And then she smiled, nodding understandingly. “Yeah, alright, fair enough. Name’s Stephanie. You can call me Steph, the rest of these dweebs do. Nice to finally meet you, Tim has told me _all_ about you.”

“Yeah, no he hasn’t,” Jason scoffed, glare not leaving the girl, Stephanie, Steph.

“Oh? And how would you know that?” Steph asked tauntingly, grinning at Jason like the cat who got the cream. If Jason hadn’t known Tim for months now he might’ve believed her.

“Because he knows I’d rather avoid getting shot,” Tim answered for him, rolling his eyes with a completely unimpressed expression. That had Jason grinning because damn straight he knew Tim didn’t wanna get shot. Or thrown out of buildings. That’s what made those such good threats. “You guys want something to drink? Alfred left us with some tea.”

Jason hesitated. He remembered Alfred’s tea, it’d been one of the things about the mansion that’d stuck with him even when he wasn’t sure about a lot of things. Now Jason remembered all the times he’d holed up in the various nooks and crannies of the mansion with a book and how Alfred had always seemed to know where he was, appearing with a tray of tea and biscuits shortly after Jason had made himself comfortable.

“Yeah, we’d love some,” Roy piped up from next to Jason, clearly having sensed that his friend maybe wasn’t all there. Dammit, Jason cursed to himself, he had to stop letting the manor get to him. And then Jason’s side very clearly felt the point that was Roy’s elbow. “ _Right_ Jason?”

Jason faked a cough, just to clear his throat. He wasn’t sure that his voice would’ve held otherwise. “Yes, we would. We like tea. Thanks.”

He mentally cursed himself, again, cause he could’ve said anything, _anything at all_ , and he chose ‘we like tea’. If Blondie over there hadn’t already thought him crazy she certainly would now. Tim, however, was already pouring them each a cup like the statement was the most normal thing ever. Actually, Dick and Barbara seemed to take it in a stride as well but to be fair they all knew Jason already, and Jason was pretty sure he couldn’t make Dick _even more_ distrustful of him.

As Jason cautiously picked up one of the cups, sitting down in the chair closest to Tim’s, that was when the silence set in, like none of them really knew how to act or what to say. For a brief moment Jason considered asking Dick how his head was, tauntingly of course, but he wasn’t sure the others knew Jason was the one who’d kicked his ass. On the off-chance that they didn’t, Jason wasn’t about to be the one giving it away. It’d only make things more difficult than they already were.

Well, Dick and Barbara seemed to tolerate him being there because they’d quietly resumed their previous conversation. Were they… together again? Jason wasn’t sure but from the way they looked at each other he was suddenly very glad to not have blurted out any incriminating evidence of having beaten up Dick. Tim had said Barbara was on his side, for now. That wouldn’t last long if she found out that Jason had sincerely tried to hurt Dick. Not permanently, but enough to get the message through. Which message that had been… well that was debatable.

So Jason didn’t mention it, he just let the silence run its course. Tim seemed content enough albeit a bit bored. Steph, however, seemed intent on drilling holes into his brain with just her eyes. Good thing heat vision was an alien, not a Stephanie, thing.

“Look Blondie, if you don’t quit staring you’ll get a face full of hot tea,” Jason snapped. He could practically hear both Roy and Tim take a deep breath cause Jason had been at the manor like, fifteen minutes, and he’d already threatened someone.

“Blondie because of my hair or Blondie as in the rock band?” Stephanie asked, an eyebrow raised inquisitively. Jason grinned at her. He’d not made that connection when he, in his head, had given her the nickname but now…

“Why? You can sing?” Jason shot back, the tea warming his hands comfortably.

“I’ll have you know that I am a very talented singer,” Blondie began proudly. Ordinarily, Jason wouldn’t have taken a statement like that at face value but he wasn’t there to make more enemies so he would make the exception this once.

Only then, he heard Tim muttering: “Yeah, talented at making our ears bleed.”

Damn, Timbers wasn’t holding anything back tonight. Well, he had made it kind of clear that he had tired of the others’ company weeks ago. Still, harsh, Jason thought although the comment itself had him struggling not to laugh. Stephanie, however, let out an audible gasp.

“Lies and slander! You and Dick said I sounded great!” Stephanie proclaimed dramatically. In the other end of the lounge Jason heard Dick choking on his drink.

“I remember completely avoiding that topic whenever it was brought up,” Tim corrected her, grinning ever so slightly. “Complimenting you was all Dick.”

Jason glanced at the older vigilante just to see him glaring daggers at Tim. Dick even seemed like he was about to say something about Tim throwing him under the bus like that but the second he opened his mouth he seemed to deflate the tiniest bit.

Okay, Jason thought, that was strange. In his experience, Dick never backed down from a fight. Or was it that Dick just didn’t back down from a fight with Jason? Honestly, Jason wouldn’t be surprised. Although, the slight flash of guilt seemingly washing over Dick whenever he glanced at Tim could also be why. Right. The idiot was giving the kid space. That had to have been difficult to do when they’d been forced to sit down at a table together.

Instead, Dick turned to Blondie, probably to placate her in some way although she was obviously just pulling their legs. Seriously, he should be able to see that, Jason thought, it was obvious.

However, he didn’t get to say whatever he’d wanted to because the next second the door opened again, revealing another stranger who immediately narrowed her eyes at Jason. That had to be Cassandra. She fit the description Tim had provided him with pretty well. But if Jason had found Stephanie slightly intimidating, it was nothing compared to the girl quietly glowering at him.

“You,” Cassandra forced out, pointing at Jason. She sounded like she wasn’t exactly used to talking but that was the least of Jason’s problems because she looked like she was about to carve his gut open and make him stay dead this time. “Brother.”

Jason froze. Actually, everyone in the room froze. “I… what? No, you’re-”

“Dick. You. Tim. Damian. Me,” Cassandra continued adamantly, a short pause after each word but still not, in the slightest, swayed by Jason’s stuttered refusal. Really, if Tim hadn’t kinda explained Cassandra’s problem with speaking Jason would’ve just thought she’d been infected by Bruce’s flair for dramatic pauses. “Adopted.”

“No, I died! I’m legally not in this family anymore. Tim! Tell them!” Jason exclaimed while Cassandra just glowered at him and… oh shit, was that a pout? This was why dinner was and always would be such a bad idea.

Looking at Tim, the kid just stared back at him unsurely. “I… don’t think it works like that?”

“Dammit Tim! You’re not helpful!” Jason told him all the while Cassandra just crossed her arms smugly. Was it too much to ask for Timmers to back him up on this? Jason thought exasperatedly to himself. The kid in question just offered him a blank stare and a shrug.

“Yeah, you might as well give up arguing. Cass somehow always gets the last word,” Blondie chimed in, sounding absolutely delighted about the whole situation. “Though she prefers to talk with her fists, you know?”

So what, Jason should feel happy that Cassandra was picking a verbal fight with him instead? He gave the slight girl a critical once over, thinking for a moment that he could probably take her. And then Jason noticed the calculating glint in her eyes, the stance showing that she was ready to strike at any moment, the way her raised eyebrow seemed to exude ‘try me’. That and the various rumours he’d heard about Black Bat. All of a sudden, Jason wasn’t so sure he wanted to even try fighting her.

Verbal fighting it was then. “Don’t tell me what to do, Blondie. And Tim, it better fucking work like that.”

“Settle down, please,” Barbara’s voice cut through the room as she endeavoured to be the voice of reason. She shot Dick a look, as if mentally asking for him to chime in so they’d get the others in line but Dick was being uncharacteristically quiet. At least Jason assumed that it was uncharacteristic of him because Dick usually didn’t seem to shut up whenever Jason encountered him.

And that was when the door opened again to show the tiny ten-year-old-ish boy that Jason presumed to by Damian, the current Robin. The child took in the scene with a blank expression before frowning, clearly unimpressed with all of them. “Alfred sent me to inform you that dinner has been served. We should take our places at the table.”

Then the child walked to the dining room door and left them. Straight and to the point, Jason could respect that. The child hadn’t really seemed to be a big talker from what Jason remembered of his unfortunate run-in with Batman. He had just stared at Jason unnervingly. Still, Jason couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something familiar about that child.

“Alright, you heard the Demon Spawn. Let’s get this over with,” came Tim’s terse reply before he followed the child he had _just_ called the literal spawn of demons. Alright. There was definitely some bad blood between the two, Jason decided.

“He’s not-” Dick began only to cut himself off with a heavy sigh and a shake of his head. Not that Tim had heard him, or if he had then he’d ignored it completely because when Jason followed the others, Roy in tow, Timbers was calmly sitting down in the spot that had a note with ‘ _Master Timothy_ ’ written.

Okay. So they were doing fixed seats. Right. That was totally normal. Internally Jason was beginning to panic just a little bit. At least until he saw that he was seated between Tim and Blondie with Roy across from him. Alright, Jason breathed, that made it easier to silently communicate if Jason began feeling uncomfortable. Well, _more_ uncomfortable.

Before long, first course was served and idle chatter had started up around the table. Jason noticed Dick and Barbara talking together in hushed whispers from where they were sitting next to each other. The child, Damian, seemed to not care about any of the conversations around him. Roy had somehow managed to get Timbo to be social despite how dead the kid looked, it was only when Jason really listened to the conversation that he realised how. Yeah, nope. That was way too many advanced technological terms than Jason cared to ever hear. Still, at the sight of the two animatedly arguing the pros and cons of some whatnots and thingamajigs, Jason couldn’t do much to stop his slight smile.

“Nerds,” he said under his breath, not intending for any of them to hear because while Jason would gladly and without a second thought call them nerds to their faces he also knew that there was a time and place for that and they seemed to be having fun. So he guess he could let it slide, for now.

A snicker from his right caught his attention and he glanced at Blondie only to realise that she had most definitely heard him and was shaking her head slightly. Immediately, Jason scowled at her, still miffed that she’d obviously taken Cassandra’s side earlier and found it hilariously amusing to see him fumble. At least, that’s what Jason assumed she’d found amusing.

“What? They are,” Jason growled defensively.

Blondie held up her hands as if to placate him. “Hey, I’m not disagreeing. Tim is like, the nerdiest person I know.”

Despite himself, Jason huffed out a brief laugh. “Try being stuck on a spaceship with Roy for a year and then we can talk, Blondie. If it hadn’t been for Kori I’d have shot him long ago just so he’d stop talking to me in that weird language they’re using right now.”

“Isn’t he your friend?” Blondie asked, eyebrow raised in question.

“Yeah, so?” Jason shrugged nonchalantly, doing his utmost to appear relaxed and at ease, or maybe not so much the latter. He was still very much on edge.

Blondie seemed to think his question over for a brief moment, no doubt listening in on the uncomfortably nerdy conversation happening on Jason’s left side. “Alright, yeah. That seems reasonable.”

“Glad you’re finally seeing things my way,” Jason nodded a her, barely keeping himself from outright grinning.

“Does Roy do that thing Tim does where you ask what he’s doing and he’ll answer with words you’re not even sure are in a dictionary?” Blondie asked, pursing her lips in slight displeasure. Jason had to suppress the shiver of discomfort that sentence brought with it. “And then you’re just sitting there, feeling stupid because he says it like it’s something everyone knows and you kinda want to strangle him but you also don’t want him to see that you got _nothing_ from what he just said? So instead of asking him to explain you take revenge by pouring salt in his coffee?”

“He only did it all the fucking time,” Jason groaned, rolling his eyes at the memory. “But I just shot the thing he was working on instead of the coffee prank.”

Blondie looked positively ecstatic at that. “Oh my God that is gold. You just-! Ha! How’d he react?”

“He punched me,” Jason grinned. “Worth it though.”

“I bet,” Blondie laughed, raising her glass of water. “Cheers to petty revenge plots against our genius friends.”

Jason clinked his glass to hers, noting that the sound briefly drew the attention of Barbara, who was sat opposite of Blondie, and, by extension, Dick. The child sitting next to Blondie didn’t seem to care one bit though. Actually, he had yet to say anything since they’d entered the dining hall.

Blondie, however, didn’t seem to care in the slightest, still looking at Roy and Tim animatedly discussing… something. Yeah, the conversation still wasn’t making much sense to Jason.

“I’m gonna guess that Roy can be just as insufferable as Tim,” Blondie smirked.

“Didn’t you date Tim a few years ago?” Dick voiced, sounding almost hesitant to even speak up on Tim’s behalf if the look Goldie sent Timbo’s way was anything to go by. Timmers who had gone quiet all of a sudden, something that Jason only noticed because he was sitting right next to him. If that hadn’t been the case the small change would’ve gone completely unnoticed because right then and there Jason had something much more interesting to focus on.

“You did what?” Jason asked Blondie incredulously, looking at her with something akin to shock.

“Which is exactly why I should know,” Blondie replied to Dick, both ignoring and indirectly answering Jason’s question.

“Wait, hold on for a second here. _You_ … dated _him_ ,” Jason stated, pointing at the two before turning to Tim who had so far been quietly observing the whole thing. “Look, no offense but she is way out of your league.”

Tim stared back at Jason, one eyebrow raised in brief bewilderment. “How is that not offensive?”

“Oh so you’re saying I’m not?” Blondie shot back, quick as a whip, crossing her arms while looking very unimpressed.

For a brief moment, Tim looked from Blondie to Jason, who was grinning by now as he obviously found delight in Tim’s discomfort, only to turn back to Roy, who was also looking on in amusement. “So what was the problem with the schematics again?”

Roy shook his head, laughing at Tim’s obvious attempt to avoid the question but soon launched into an explanation that had Jason tune out about five words in. It was gibberish.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Blondie grinned and Jason couldn’t help but look over at Dick, who was still looking like he wanted to say something. Well, the look Jason shot Dick just dared the older to comment. It wasn’t really a surprise when Dick frowned. No, the surprise was that Dick’s stubborn ass backed down from an argument with Jason.

Well, maybe Goldie was under instructions from Alfred to not start anything with Jason? Or things were really bad between Goldie and the nerd. Either way, Jason had a surprisingly alright time at the mansion. He hadn’t thought he’d ever get the chance to admit that to himself again, hell, he hadn’t even expected to set foot in the manor again. But when dessert was served and subsequently eaten Jason had to admit that he was ready to leave and hit the streets, if only to get away from the constant feeling of paranoia that Bruce might walk into the room at any moment. Sure, Tim had promised Jason that Bruce wouldn’t be there but when had anyone, other than Alfred, made Bruce do anything?

So as soon as it was possible to get up and leave without offending Alfred, Jason did. The miniature Robin had already left, Barbara was about to leave as well, and Tim looked about ready to jump through a window which was all the hints Jason needed to get Roy’s attention and subtly give the sign that they were leaving.

“Master Jason, a word before you depart?” Alfred called as Jason and Roy were getting out of their chairs. Sure it was phrased as a question but Jason knew better.

And so did Roy apparently.

“I’ll wait for you outside,” Roy said, nodding towards the door because he knew Jason well enough to know that after Jason’s last conversation with Alfred he didn’t want witnesses to the next one.

Jason nodded to Roy before following Alfred into the kitchen, knowing that the bats would, without a doubt, be making their way towards the cave which meant that whatever Alfred wanted to talk to Jason about would be between them only. At least, Jason trusted Alfred enough to assume that would be the case. Not to mention, the kitchen was the one room in the manor that was least likely to be bugged by Bruce. Alfred’s wrath would be enough to give the billionaire reason to pause, hopefully.

Still, as Jason stepped into the kitchen he had to pause and visibly shake off the nostalgia washing over him. Damn, how many times had he been sat by that table over by the window with a book and a cup of Alfred’s tea? And how many times had Alfred joined him? And shit, that was the cupboard that Jason had hid in to spy on Alfred as he cooked because he wanted to know how the butler made the food that delicious. He’d been found instantly, of course, but that’d only led to Alfred actually letting Jason help with cooking. Especially when the old man realised that Jason already knew a thing or two about being in a kitchen, unlike Dick and Bruce.

Dammit, Jason needed to get out of his own head already! Rolling his shoulders while blinking the memories away, Jason focused on where the butler was putting away plates.

“You uh… wanted to talk?” Jason asked, mentally cringing at the way that’d sounded. Fucking hell, why was this so difficult?

“Yes, I wanted to tell you once more how glad we are to have you back,” Alfred started and Jason didn’t have the heart to tell him that he wasn’t planning on being ‘back’. Jason had no intention of joining that stupid excuse of a family again. “I also felt a need to warn you.”

Those eight words had Jason’s heart drop to his stomach. Warn him of what? Danger? Or was it supposed to be a threat? Shit, it was probably a threat. Still, Jason found himself asking: “Warn me?”

“Yes, Master Jason,” Alfred nodded, shooting Jason a hard stare. Fuck. “I realise that you were not yourself at the time, however, if you should ever pose a threat to Master Timothy’s life, or that of your other siblings, again, I will not hesitate to stop you.”

Jason closed his eyes, taking in the full extent of those words. He knew Alfred would do what needed to be done, what Bruce wouldn’t, and Jason respected him for that. Deep down, Jason still wasn’t sure why or how Tim had forgiven him, why any of them had, so this was reasonable. This, he could understand. And sure, Jason might’ve threatened to cause Tim bodily harm on multiple occasions already and would’ve acted on it because dammit the kid was annoying at times, but he didn’t want him dead. And if there ever came a situation where Jason would try to kill Tim again…

Sighing heavily through his nose, Jason nodded grimly, acknowledging Alfred’s words for what they were: a promise. “Thank you.”

Alfred’s posture seemed to relax the tiniest bit as a quiet sigh left the butler. “Now, with that out of the way, would you like to take some of the leftovers home, Master Jason?”

“Uh… sure?” Jason replied, already knowing that it wasn’t really a question you could say no to. When Alfred offered you leftovers you took the damn leftovers. “I mean, yeah, I’d like that.”

The smile that lit up the old man’s face was worth all of it and honestly it left Jason a little dumbstruck cause he hadn’t really thought he’d ever be in a position to see that smile again and now he’d witnessed it multiple times in the span of a few hours. Jason almost wanted to give him another hug. He didn’t. Cause boundaries. Those were important. And two hugs in one evening would be too much. Definitely.

It wasn’t long before Jason was handed a plastic box of food, enough to last him and Roy at least the rest of the week, and was on his way home. Jason was driving yet again, against Roy’s better judgement probably. The archer had taken one look at Jason’s expression and opened his mouth to say something only to shut it again immediately. That was… probably for the best, Jason admitted silently, his mind drifting back to the last thing Alfred had said before Jason had left the manor: ‘I do look forward to seeing you around more, Master Jason’.

Alfred obviously expected Jason to keep visiting and now that he’d already visited once without dying (again) or being beaten beyond recognition he really didn’t have an excuse to not come again. That favour Tim owed him had better be worth it, Jason growled mentally while also resigning himself to the fact that he wasn’t getting rid of the bats anytime soon.

As a matter of fact, Jason did end up coming back. The next week. When Alfred invited him over again. He almost said no. The reply had been typed out and ready to send only for Jason to stop, go into another text conversation, and write out a different message. To Tim. It was just a casual inquiry to see if the one bat Jason knew for a fact that he could stand would be there, and whether the bat he couldn’t stand would appear as well.

Roy joined him again and it turned out much like the last time. The only difference was that Cassandra decided to use the decorative fruit and her cutlery for target practise. Roy and Tim were still talking Science, as Blondie had dubbed the language those two shared, and if the two of them hadn’t already exchanged contact information Jason obviously didn’t know his friends as well as he thought he did.

Two times turned into three, three into four, and suddenly a month had gone by where, for the latter part of it, Jason hadn’t done his utmost to avoid the bats while patrolling. Sure, he still ducked out of sight whenever he caught a glimpse of the Caped Crusader Himself but that was the only one he was actively steering clear of. This only really dawned on Jason a week after Roy had gone back to Star City to fuck with Queen, the jackass, not the band.

It’d also been a week since Jason last went to the manor. Sure, Tim would most likely be there but it felt strange to not bring Roy along and even stranger was the thought of driving up to the manor alone. Yet, that was exactly what Jason was doing, except this time he hadn’t been invited.

Bleeding heavily from a gash in his side, Jason raced down the back roads to the manor. The media seemed to love finding out who entered and left the manor. As a result Jason rarely drove up the main road. So even if the main road was the most direct, he couldn’t very well show up at the front door in his Red Hood gear. Well, alright, the main road being the most direct way to the manor wasn’t exactly true. No, that would be the entrance to the Batcave but Tim had already explained that Bruce didn’t want Jason there and really, Jason didn’t want to go through the Batcave even if his life depended on it, which, in that moment, it might’ve.

Yeah, even bleeding out with several broken bones and what Jason thought felt like a lot of sprained limbs, Jason would rather crash his bike cause he passed out than go through the Batcave. He’d rather stash his bike and drag himself through a window than see that damned plaque again.

“Master Jason!?” the panic had never been as obvious in Alfred’s voice as it was in that moment where Jason stood slumped, a hand pressed tightly to his side to stem the bleeding. “What happened to you?!”

Obviously Jason wasn’t in any state to reply as he slumped against the wall, groaning in pain when Alfred pressed whatever he had at hand into the bleeding wound. Jason really hoped that whatever cloth currently being soaked in blood was expensive and belonged to Bruce. 

“This would never have happened if you had just listened and worn a comm like the rest of them,” Alfred continued berating Jason. Yeah, they’d had this conversation before much to Jason's displeasure. “What where you _thinking_? What you and the others do is dangerous! The least you can do for the safety of yourself is make sure you’re not completely alone when out there, Master Jason. This family cannot bear to lose you twice.”

The last sentence had Jason backing away from Alfred’s well-intended help, back towards the still open window. “This was a mistake. I shouldn’t… shouldn’t’ve come here.”

Jason had all of his focus on getting to the window, getting out of the window, which was exactly why he didn’t notice Alfred sighing heavily.

“I do apologise for this, Master Jason,” Alfred spoke, making Jason look back in confusion. The masked vigilante was about to ask why when a fist collided with his face and everything went black.


	8. Tim Drake

Tim had been sitting by the huge computer in the Batcave for a few hours when he heard the unmistakable sound of someone entering from outside. Well, it was pretty late already, or should he say early? Never mind that. Glancing at the computer he immediately knew who’d just gotten back from patrol because only Nightwing and Batman were still out there and Batman was on the other side of town.

Sighing to himself, Tim did suppose he’d worked on this for long enough. It wasn’t like he couldn’t continue working back at his own place. So he gathered his things and headed for the lift, just to see if Alfred had gone to bed yet. It was only polite to say goodbye and thanks for the coffee, even if it’d only been one cop. For some reason Alfred didn’t want to feed Tim’s caffeine addiction.

“This is getting ridiculous,” Dick called, having obviously figured out what Tim had been doing this past month. “How long are you going to avoid me?”

Tim paused but didn’t even spare his older brother a glance. Honestly, the other’s words only served to feed the cold anger coursing through Tim’s very being whenever he even looked at Dick.

“I don’t have time for another pointless argument,” Tim replied as he resumed gathering his things together.

“Good because I don’t want to argue with you,” Dick shot back quickly before Tim could continue his escape. Not that he really had to worry about that, Tim still needed to find Alfred.

Sighing heavily, Tim admitted that his next words came out just a tad harsher than he’d meant them to. He blamed the lack of caffeine in his system. “Then what do you want?”

“Dammit, Tim, I just want you to talk to me again,” Dick exclaimed, sounding tired enough to make Tim sigh yet again.

“I’m talking to you right now,” Tim offered jokingly. He didn’t even need to look at Dick to know that the other was sporting a very unimpressed expression.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Dick replied quietly, so unlike him that Tim finally turned around to face his older brother. Apparently jokes and sarcasm wasn’t getting him out of this talk. That Dick absolutely wanted to have. In a room where any of the others could walk in at any given moment. Not to mention the time, which was closer to morning than night now. “Look, I’m not asking for your forgiveness, kiddo, I just want us to be able to have a normal conversation again.”

Tim took a deep breath, crossing his arms over his chest as he thought Dick’s words over. Honestly, he didn’t think he’d be able to forgive Dick even if he consciously decided to try – the wound was still too fresh – but he _had_ been talking to Dick normally before the argument.

The longer Tim took to reply the more Dick seemed to curl in on himself until the older apparently had had enough of the silence. “I’m sorry that I hurt you, Tim, I really am and I’m sorry you had to yell at me for me to actually realise that I had. But I don’t want things to continue being like this. I don’t want to lose-”

“Dick, shut up,” Tim interrupted, frowning because this nervous rambling wasn’t like Dick and it definitely wasn’t a good look on him. Well, not that any of them were good at the whole dealing with emotions thing. But fuck it, now Tim had to try an explain exactly that: his emotions. “I’m still angry. And hurt. And I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you. It makes me uncomfortable every time you try to make me change my mind about Damian when the Demon Spawn clearly hasn’t changed his opinion of me.”

Dick nodded apprehensively for each sentence that left Tim, as if noting them down mentally and filing the information within the depths of his mind. Not once did he try to interrupt Tim, not even to admonish the younger for his choice of nickname regarding Damian, and really, that was what made the difference in Tim’s mind.

“So just… accept that I’m not changing my mind on this before Demon Spawn does. And stop lecturing me about every damn thing I do that doesn’t fit into your world order, like, you know, my friendship with Jason, which doesn’t have anything to do with you whatsoever,” Tim said, maintaining a deadpan expression, the one he usually wore to board meetings and in front of the press.

“I… Alright. Fine. I can do that,” Dick breathed which had Tim raising an eyebrow sceptically. Could he really? Dick seemed to sense Tim’s disbelief and shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Okay, I can _try_ to do that.”

“Yeah, I’ll believe that when I see it,” Tim scoffed lightly but made to sit down and pick up where he’d left his work at. He could stay a little longer he supposed.

Dick seemed to realise that Tim wasn’t in a rush to leave the cave anymore and the younger could practically hear the breath of relief the other drew. “You uh… need any help with… that?”

Tim was about to say no. Really, he was perfectly capable of tracking down this criminal on his own. But... letting Dick help would mean that it’d get done faster, which meant that Tim could finish a report due tomorrow at work, which meant that he wouldn’t have the rest of the board breathing down his neck, which in turn meant that he might be able to work on the schematics for his taser that he and Roy had sat down and devised together.

“Yeah, alright,” Tim nodded cautiously, still making sure to keep his expression stoic. At least he did until he caught Dick trying to hide a yawn which Tim had to smirk ever so slightly at. “If you can stay awake.”

Dick paused, clearly thinking it over, before nodding. “I’ll go get us coffee.”

When Dick had left, Tim took a brief moment to just breathe and reflect on what had just happened. Guess he was talking to Dick again, Tim frowned to himself. There were too many ways that could end badly and if Tim sat down to count all of them he’d end up sitting there until Bruce got back which wouldn’t be for hours yet if Tim knew B. But really, Tim had to admit that it was exhausting to continuously avoid Dick and the anger… well, Tim could deal with that. After all, he had been doing that already. It all depended on whether or not Dick would keep his word about the whole Damian issue.

Tim’s gaze shifted to his phone and the genius only found himself frowning again. He should’ve gotten a message from Jason saying that he’d gotten the information by now but Tim’s phone was being painstakingly silent. While Tim knew that Jason could take care of himself, he still couldn’t help the nagging feeling at the back of his mind telling him that something had gone wrong. Jason would’ve flaunted the information in his face otherwise.

At the rush of the lift, Tim schooled his face into neutrality once more, fully expecting to see Dick returning with coffee. He was half right. Dick was there, but so was Alfred. In fact, the two of them were currently shouldering the weight of a bleeding Jason. Fuck, Tim _knew_ he shouldn’t have let Jason go alone. He should’ve insisted on coming with or something but the stubborn ass had insisted he’d breeze through it. ‘Piece of cake,’ he’d said, ‘like taking candy from a baby.’ Tim didn’t know which babies Jason usually stole candy from but the two of them clearly had different definitions of the word ‘easy’.

Tim rushed forwards to take Alfred’s place, allowing the butler to prepare the medical supplies. Between Dick and Tim they quickly got Jason wrangled onto the medical table where Tim checked the unconscious vigilante’s pulse. Alive. He was alive. Tim breathed out a breath of air he wasn’t aware he’d been holding.

“Tim, could you take over here, please?” Dick, who was currently pressing an expensive sweater to Jason’s side, asked. “I’ll go deal with Bruce, do damage control before he finds out we brought Jason into the Cave.”

“It won’t help,” Tim muttered but did as his older brother asked. Bruce was going to throw a tantrum about this but Tim would be damned if the billionaire was going to take his anger out on Jason who had done his best to stay out of the Cave so far.

“I know, but better than him finding out and yelling at the wrong person for this,” Dick sighed, putting on his domino mask again, after having washed the blood off his hands.

“Alright, be safe and all that,” Tim replied distractedly, focused on the fact that Alfred had just returned. What he didn’t see were the twin looks of pleasant surprise grazing both Dick and Alfred’s faces, the former hoping that he could repair the damage done to their relationship and the latter genuinely glad that the two were at least talking again.

Then Dick was off and Alfred and Tim were working on stitching Jason back together. It was only hours later that the two of them got Jason maneuvered upstairs and set up in a bed in one of the manor’s many guest rooms. They’d briefly debated carrying Jason to his old room but quickly decided that that might not elicit the best response from the unconscious patient once he woke up. Also, Jason’s old room was kind of far away and Tim was starting to feel the hours he’d been awake, or maybe that was just his muscles screaming under the strain of attempting to dead-lift Jason.

So they situated Jason in a plain guest room and Tim promptly collected his things from the Cave and set up in that room instead, thinking that he could at least work while he waited for Sleeping Beauty to open his eyes. Right now Tim would much rather throw himself into his work than deal with how he felt about having agreed to talk to Dick again.

Turned out, he only had to wait a few hours before Jason groggily came to. Tim might’ve locked his gaze on the other a bit too quickly due to the worry still coursing through him. Amazing, more feelings Tim could work on burying. So instead of going into that whole issue, Tim decided on a different strategy just to notify Jason that he was in the room.

“Jason, how much do you weigh? Because seriously, I swear, dead-lifting you with Dick was like carrying a mountain,” Tim complained teasingly. The taunt had the presumed effect and Jason blearily focused on where Tim had set up camp.

“Tim, no, shut up. Just… stop. I am on too many pain meds to deal with this. Fuck off,” Jason grumbled miserably, head falling back on the pillow again.

Alright, Tim supposed he could hold back on the teasing this once. But the next time he had to carry Jason’s heavy ass Tim would not be so lenient. Still, Jason soon spoke up again, mumbled words cutting through the companionable silence.

“Tim… Tim. He punched me,” Jason started weakly. Tim had to catch himself before he asked who exactly had punched him and why Jason was choosing to focus on that instead of the fact that he’d been freaking stabbed. “Alfred fucking decked me. I have never felt so guilty for being punched before.”

Oh. So that was why Jason was fixated on the punch. Alfred had punched him? Holy shit. “Yeah, that would do it. I’d feel guilty if Alfred punched me too.”

Honestly, between the two of them there were enough things to feel guilty about but being punched by Alfred had to take one of the top spots. Tim was glad he hadn’t ever been in a situation that warranted Alfred knocking him out. Or, well, he had, but Alfred hadn’t acted on it. Yet.

They sat in quiet contemplation as Jason seemed to absorb that he had indeed been knocked out by Alfred. Most likely they would’ve continued sitting in silence had voices not been audible outside the door. Voices that sounded unmistakably like Alfred, Dick, and Bruce.

A quick glance at Jason confirmed Tim’s suspicions because the older had sat up in alarm, seemingly not noticing the pain that action should’ve caused. The whiteness of Jason face might’ve been the blood loss, or a reaction to the impending, inevitable fact that Bruce would barge into the room very soon, Tim surmised.

“You guys took me to the Cave?” Jason asked quietly, wide eyes looking at Tim for answers. It was so unlike the Jason Tim had come to know that the younger had to pause for a brief moment.

“Yes,” Tim replied just as quietly. He had to tell Jason the truth. He couldn’t, no, _wouldn’t_ , lie to Jason about something as important as that. “You needed medical attention.”

Alright, Tim was purely trying to rationalise the others’ actions at this point. It had been the logical thing to do, even if Bruce was now on the warpath which was demonstrated perfectly as said billionaire barged into the room, much to everyone’s displeasure.

“Get him out of here. I don’t want him here,” Jason said, eyes locked on Bruce as if terrified to look away. Tim could understand that. Jason was in a vulnerable position, what with being hurt and all, and it didn’t take a genius IQ to tell that he was moments from leaping out the window.

Yeah, that would probably reopen a bunch of wounds and most likely cause just a few more. Therefore, Tim did the only thing he could do in that situation: he got out of his chair and faced up to Bruce.

“Alright, you heard him. Out,” Tim demanded coldly, arms crossed in obvious defiance.

Bruce, however, looked positively livid at Tim’s audacity. “This is my manor, I can go wherever I damn well-”

“Out!” Tim repeated forcefully, like it required physical effort to just force the one word out. And for a second, Bruce wore a look of shock.

“Perhaps it would be best to do as the young masters suggested, Master Bruce,” Alfred supplied politely but the tone of his voice didn’t fool any of them. Alfred was seconds away from forcibly removing Bruce from the room. Tim would help.

Maybe it was a wise decision that Bruce stopped to reconsider. Tim could practically see the cogs turning in Bruce’s mind as Tim glared him down with barely disguised anger. And maybe it was a step in the right direction as Bruce ground his teeth before turning sharply and stomping out the room.

The four left took a few moments to breathe. Or, they would’ve, had Jason not immediately spoken up.

“Look, thanks for stitching me up but you can just call Kori now and I’ll be out of your hair.”

The look on Alfred’s face clearly conveyed the butler’s distaste at the mere thought. “Don’t be ridiculous, Master Jason, there is no need to inconvenience Miss Koriand’r.”

“I wouldn’t be bothering her! We’re friends! A team even! This is what you have them for!” Jason argued, the slightest bit of panic working it’s way into his voice.

“It is also what you have family for, Master Jason,” Alfred countered tersely.

“And isn’t Kori still off-planet? Roy seemed to imply that,” Tim supplied, sitting down now that Bruce was no longer present and looking like he’d strangle Jason.

Jason stared at Tim incredulously. Wait, did Roy not tell him that he and Tim were keeping in contact? “When the fuck did you talk with Roy?!”

Obviously not, Tim concluded as they both ignored Alfred’s admonishing ‘Language, Master Jason.’

“Earlier today, wait, no, yesterday,” Tim nodded to himself. The days had a tendency to blur together when he got caught up in work or a project.

“Jesus Tim, when was the last time you slept?” Dick asked frowning from where he was still lingering by the door.

“Irrelevant,” Tim shot back stoically.

“Okay,” Jason sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in an obvious show of exhaustion. “Firstly, I can contact Kori. She would come pick me up. This is important, health isn’t a joke, and blah blah all that good stuff. Secondly, why the fuck are you getting all cosy with Roy? And thirdly, get some fucking sleep, Timbers.”

“Master Jason, you are staying here and that is final. We are perfectly capable of looking after your health,” Alfred said resolutely, effectively shutting down the argument. Not that Jason had had much of a choice in the first place; Tim knew that it was easier to just agree to whatever Alfred wanted because the butler always seemed to win arguments. And honestly, it wasn’t like Alfred’s decisions were bad or illogical.

“And Roy and I exchanged numbers. He got good ideas. Also, no thank you,” Tim replied to the two last points of Jason’s rant.

Jason looked from Tim to Alfred only to flop back down on his pillow with a groan of pain and an arm covering his face. Did they… break him? Tim sure hoped not.

“We should… probably give him some space,” Dick, of all people, said unsurely.

“I’ll stay,” Tim shrugged, having sat down with his work once more while pretending to not notice how some of the tension left Jason’s shoulders.

“Very well, I shall return momentarily with some brunch for the two of you,” Alfred nodded politely, a smile crinkling by the corners of his eyes. “Master Richard, if you would join me?”

“Of course,” Dick nodded but still glanced warily between Tim and Jason, almost as if he had doubts about leaving the two in a room together. Tim barely kept himself from rolling his eyes but he had to admit that Dick was at least making an effort.

The moment Alfred and Dick had left, closing the door behind themselves because that was only polite, Tim’s gaze went back to his laptop and the abundance of documents he currently had open. It would take a while to go through all of it, Tim concluded quietly. Oh well, he might as well get it over with.

“You’re… really going to just stay here, in this room, with me?” Jason asked and Tim looked up to find the other’s eyes fixed on him.

Now, Tim knew Jason didn’t want to be at the manor, especially not without someone there whom he knew would have his back and Tim was pretty sure he had proven that by now. Tim also knew that Jason was stubbornly proud and would rather jump out the window than admit that. The admission that Jason hadn’t wanted Bruce in his room was pretty big all things considered. It was Jason relying on someone else because he knew he couldn’t fight back himself.

So Tim could tell Jason that he knew all of that, that he wasn’t about to leave Jason to fend off Bruce on his own. He didn’t because then Jason really would jump out the window and they weren’t exactly on the ground floor.

“Yep,” was the answer Tim settled on, looking back at the computer screen without actually seeing any of the many things filling said screen.

“Don’t you have work or something?” Jason continued.

“I don’t really have meetings in general so I can work from pretty much anywhere,” Tim shrugged. It really didn’t matter much to him, he just preferred working at the office because it was easier to concentrate on actual work there instead of one of the many projects he had lying around in his penthouse or Teen Titans stuff. Also, Dick was usually less likely to ambush him at the office, keeping that to lunch and dinner if Tim had decided to work late which, admittedly, he often did.

“Wait, what do you mean you don’t got meetings?” Jason frowned like that was some kind of personal affront to him. In the same moment, Tim heard steps stop outside the room, steps that he was pretty sure belonged to Bruce. At least Jason didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Jay, answer this question honestly. Would you trust anything an 18-year-old told you if they were the one you were meeting with in a big corporation?” Tim asked tersely, eyes having left his computer to watch Jason open his mouth, about to answer, when he thought better of it and frowned once more.

“Alright, fair point,” Jason admitted and Tim would take it even if it’d sounded like Jason had been forcing those words out. “But it’s still dumb as fuck. You’re obviously good at your job.”

“Thanks, but it’s fine, really,” Tim shrugged before smirking slightly. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m not exactly a people person.”

“Ha, yeah, fucking right you’re not,” Jason grinned, a dazed expression on his face signalling that the pain meds had kicked in. They were on a timer. Most of the medical tech they had at the mansion was cutting edge, courtesy of Wayne Biotech and Pharmaceuticals.

Tim wasn’t going to tell Jason to sleep, he wasn’t that much of a hypocrite, and anyways, the meds would knock the older out whether Jason wanted to sleep or not. Just like Tim’s sleep deprivation would catch up sooner rather than later. He just… needed to tie up a few loose ends before he could give into the force of gravity trying to affect his eyelids.

Not long after Jason’s eyes had closed, Tim heard the retreating footsteps as Bruce realised they weren’t talking anymore. At least he wasn’t barging in anymore, Tim sighed in quiet contemplation. After all, they’d just talked Jason into staying. Or well, Alfred had reasoned him into staying the way only Alfred could.

A few hours with multiple calls, abundances of emails, and at least three reports written later Tim finally nodded off as well. When he woke up there were two trays on one of the small, wooden tables with food for the both of them and a piping hot pot of Alfred’s tea.

Tim moved slowly, partly due to his having just woken up after falling asleep in a chair and partly because Jason still seemed to be asleep. But finally he got to the table only to notice a folded up note in Alfred’s neat handwriting.

_Talk to Master Jason about comms_ , it said, the message immediately making Tim frown. Alright, so, the comms conversation should definitely happen but Tim couldn’t really see any way that it’d go down well.

A shift in breathing and Tim knew Jason was waking up which meant that the note was now crumbled up and stuffed in Tim’s pocket.

“You know, you’re kind of an idiot sometimes,” Tim said calmly, taking the pot of tea and pouring a cup for Jason. Tim himself was going to hunt down some coffee in a few.

“Damn, Timberly, rude, let a guy wake up enough to at least insult you back before you call him an idiot,” Jason grumbled, straining to push himself to a sitting position, only aided by the abundance of pillows Alfred had left since he’d known Jason wouldn’t accept any assistance with sitting up. Which was exactly why Tim wasn’t rushing over to help. That and the nickname which had Tim frowning. Out of all the nicknames Jason came up with, _that one_ was Tim’s least favourite. “Mind… Mind telling me why you’re calling me out like this?”

“Because, you should’ve had a way to contact us,” Tim continued, his voice matter-of-factly as he turned around and handed the glaring vigilante the cup.

“Yeah, well, so sorry I left my phone behind. Forgot that body armour had a lotta pockets,” Jason drawled sarcastically before sullenly accepting the tea. He kept glaring at Tim, though, who just rolled his eyes and leaned against the table.

“I know Alfred tried to convince you to wear comms,” Tim supplied patiently, watching as Jason kept scowling at him.

“Yeah, so? I’m not gonna hand Bruce a way to spy on me,” Jason said. “Fucking hell, Timbit, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Tough because we are gonna talk about this. You had us worried, you know,” Tim pressed on, well aware that Jason would be trying to throw him out of the room any minute now.

“And why should I care?” Jason shot back, looking like he was seconds from throwing hot tea in Tim’s face. Yeah, Tim made a mental note to not let his guard down. “I already got punched by Alfred! That’s punishment enough! I don’t need a bunch of overgrown bats and birds keeping tabs on me.”

Tim just crossed his arms and met Jason’s glare with an unimpressed stare. “You could’ve died.”

“But I didn’t!” Jason replied. Tim had to take a deep breath so _he_ didn’t end up punching Jason as well.

“And we’re back to you being an idiot,” Tim sighed dejectedly. Yeah, this was going about how he’d imagined it would.

“Like you’re any better, coffee-addict,” Jason scoffed, draining the cup of tea which was what Tim had been kind of waiting for. Especially because this conversation was going nowhere and fast.

Time to try a new angle, Tim thought as he grabbed his computer and quickly pulled up the relevant files.

“The fuck are you doing, Timberly?” Jason asked harshly. He’d probably already worked out how much Tim disliked that nickname.

“You asked before why I was talking to Roy,” Tim explained calmly, placing the computer in Jason’s lap now that Jason didn’t have any tea he could pour over it in spite. Because let’s face it, he would’ve done that. At least, Tim was pretty sure he would’ve.

“What the hell am I looking at, Timberly?” Jason growled, trying to focus on the screen. Right, the pain meds were still in his system which was both good and bad. Good because they’d kinda mellowed Jason out. Tim would’ve been dodging all manners of stuff had Jason been completely himself. Bad because right now Jason needed to focus and the good drugs didn’t really help with that. Tim would know.

“Schematics for a communicator that Roy helped me design,” Tim elaborated. He’d been working on it for a few weeks now. “It would go in your helmet. And before you shoot down the idea, just look at it. If not for me then for Roy.”

Jason narrowed his eyes at the computer before glaring back at Tim. “Alright now you’re just being annoying.”

Because Jason couldn’t ignore this since Roy had helped design it. Tim knew this already and barely kept himself from smirking. “Yeah well, I need coffee, so, I’m gonna leave you alone for a bit.”

“Don’t come back,” Jason growled while Tim just rolled his eyes, placed the tray of food within Jason’s reach, and left the room.

Once he’d closed the door behind him, Tim made for the only place in this manor that had coffee: the kitchen. Or well, his old room might also have some instant coffee stashed away from the period where Alfred had tried to make Tim quit coffee. Admittedly, Tim had been worse at the whole sleeping thing than he was now but it wasn’t that he didn’t like sleeping. He’d just rather be doing other things with his time.

“Master Timothy, I had a suspicion I would be seeing you here soon,” came Alfred’s amused voice the second Tim opened the door to the kitchen. “Was the food not to your satisfaction?”

“Sorry, Alfred, I haven’t eaten yet,” Tim shrugged apologetically as he headed for the shelf that held the manor’s coffee supply. “But I did talk to Jason about wearing a communicator.”

The butler paused in his cleaning the kitchen counter. “And how did he react?”

“Don’t know yet,” Tim said before starting to relay the conversation as he watched the coffee brew, leaving out the fact that he’d called Jason an idiot and that Jason kept cursing at him, of course. Alfred wouldn’t really appreciate those nuances of their conversation.

At the end of it, Tim was peacefully sipping his cup of coffee, still leaning against the counter that held the coffee-machine, while Alfred had sat down at the table by the windows.

“So that is why you left the room,” Alfred remarked amusedly.

“He needed to be alone,” Tim said, noting just how quiet the manor was. “The others aren’t here, are they?”

“No, Master Bruce is at Wayne Enterprises, Master Damian left for school a few hours ago, against his own wishes I regret to say, and Master Richard has gone to the police precinct to inquire about a job,” Alfred smiled calmly and Tim allowed himself to relax. He could stay at the manor all day but he didn’t really want to run into Damian, Bruce, or Dick while he was here which would’ve been kind of difficult if he also had to keep Bruce from barging into the room Jason was staying at.

Now, however, he could maybe even get some work done while Jason was making up his mind. Not that it wasn’t already made up but Tim was kind of hoping that he’d change it.

“Thanks Alfred. I’ll head down to the Cave,” Tim nodded to the butler before taking the nearly full coffee pot and heading for the door.

“Master Timothy…” Alfred sighed, shaking his head while Tim just raised an eyebrow in reply. “That much coffee can’t possibly be good for you.”

“I’ll live,” Tim smiled lightly. “Would you tell me when the others get back?”

“Of course, Master Timothy,” Alfred sighed once more, quickly giving up on convincing Tim to leave the coffee behind.

When Tim, later that day, passed by the room Jason was staying in, he could’ve sworn that he heard Roy’s voice from in there. It would make sense, Tim supposed, that Jason would call Roy to get his take on the comms situation. And also to verify that Tim had been telling him the truth. It was important to check up on sources instead of just believing them blindly. Everyone with Bat-training would understand that.

So Tim left for a few hours more before passing by again, listening for voices before he decided to knock on the door just to open it slowly in case Jason didn’t want company. Tim wasn’t exactly keen on getting his own computer thrown in his face.

“Timberly,” Jason ground out when his glare settled on Tim. Alright, Jason was still angry. Was it too late to just close the door and act like this hadn’t happened? “I talked to Roy.”

Apparently the answer was yes. It was very much too late. Tim wisely decided to wait for Jason to keep talking since this obviously wasn’t the note Jason wanted to end on. Which Tim could only tell from the mildly constipated look on Jason’s face as the latter struggled to force out whatever he wanted, or maybe in this case didn’t want, to say.

“If I find out that it is in any way traceable or spying on me you will be in a world of pain,” Jason growled, nodding over to where his helmet sat on top of his folded leather jacket. “I will destroy every electronic device that you hold dear, mark my words.”

As if to emphasise his words, Jason held up Tim’s work-computer, looking for all intents and purposes like he was about to throw it at the wooden floor.

“That seems fair,” Tim shrugged, coming forward to grab the computer before Jason actually did drop it. “You won’t regret this.”

“I already fuckin’ am,” Jason drawled and it was pretty obvious that he didn’t want Tim in the room right now. So Tim made a tactical retreat while Jason picked up the book he’d put down when Tim had entered.

“I’ll start working on it,” Tim supplied, already on his way out to which Jason just grunted in reply. Yep. He definitely needed to cool down for a while.

Knowing that the others would be arriving home any minute now, Tim went to look for a pen, some paper, and tape just to make and hang up a sign saying ‘angry Jason inside, keep away or risk bodily harm’ on the door. It was for everyone’s safety. Even the demon child’s, Tim admitted with a grimace.

Still, Tim made a point to track down Alfred and share the news with him. Relaying the brief conversation when he finally did find the butler. “… but he seemed angry so I would stay clear of the room for a few hours.”

“Nonsense, Master Timothy, I shall just have to prepare some of my tea and a few treats for Master Jason,” Alfred politely corrected Tim. “Now, will you be staying for dinner?”

“No, sorry, I’m going home to start putting Jason’s communicator together,” Tim declined apologetically. “And anyway, I doubt Jason, Dem- Damian, and Bruce would want to see me at dinner.”

Of course, Jason would be eating in his room, away from the others or maybe with Alfred for company, but Tim’s point still stood. His company wouldn’t be welcomed. Still, he’d come back tomorrow after work to annoy Jason for a bit.

“So I take it you and Master Richard are on speaking terms once more?” Alfred asked and Tim really tried to ignore the hopeful note in the butler’s question. Tim nodded hesitantly, not wanting to explain exactly why they hadn’t been talking in the first place. “I am relieved to hear that.”

Mentally he debated the pros and cons for telling Alfred that it was more a shaky truce than it was the issue having been resolved. In the end it was the cons that won because honestly, Tim didn’t want to worry the old man and chances were that Alfred already knew. Tim wouldn’t feel better about talking it through either. So really, there was no point in telling him.

“I better get going if I want to get any work done before patrol,” Tim deflected, his only strategy to escape yet another prying conversation. Alright, that was unfair to Alfred. Tim knew the butler wouldn’t pry unless it was absolutely necessary, it was Steph he needed to watch out for as she wasn’t likely to accept the ‘yeah we’re talking again, it’s all good’-act.

“Very well, Master Timothy. Drive safe and remember to eat dinner. I have taken the liberty of having your refrigerator filled up and it would be a shame if all the food were to spoil,” Alfred reminded him gently, the ‘again’ hanging unspoken in the air between them.

“I’ll… do my best,” Tim sighed as he started walking away. There was no point in arguing with Alfred when Alfred was so clearly in the right. Food just… took time to prepare and Tim would rather use that that time to work.

He did end up making food that evening though, if only because he didn’t want Alfred to find out he’d elected to ignore what had basically been an order. The next evening Jason didn’t seem like he wanted to murder Tim anymore so he decided to keep Jason company during dinner which coincidentally meant he could update the other on the ongoings in East End which he was sure Jason appreciated.

During the next two weeks, Tim fell into a sort of rhythm. Work, make the communicator for Jason, work some more while he kept Jason company, eat dinner at the manor because heck he was there already, patrol, drop by the manor again to keep Jason in the loop, and then he’d go back to his apartment and either pass out or work some more until he had to leave for work.

By the end of those two weeks the communicator was almost finished and Jason could walk around without help. Although that was more because Jason flat out refused help even when he sort of needed it. Not like Tim was in a position to judge given his track record of behaviour when injured…

Dick had started dropping by Tim’s office at lunchtime again even if it was still sort of awkward between the two of them. Still, Tim chose to act like he’d done all the other times Dick dropped by which meant that he was either flat out ignoring his older brother or threatening to call security.

Therefore, it really shouldn’t have surprised Tim when Dick decided to ambush Jason and him in one of the sitting rooms where they’d been relaxing in companionable silence, Jason reading and Tim working.

“You want us to what?!” Jason exclaimed while Tim just stared at Dick, who stood in the doorway leading to the hallway, in disbelief. This was a horrible idea. Absolutely terrible. Why did Dick think such a thing would be a good idea?!

“Join me and Little D for game night,” Dick repeated with a big grin. “We’re doing a trivia challenge this week, in teams. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“No,” Tim replied stoically, not even bothering to look up from the report he was writing. Dick already knew what he thought about the whole spending time with the Demon Spawn so honestly, that response should suffice. 

“Yeah, I’m with Timmers on this one. No fucking way, Goldie,” Jason growled, trying to go back to reading his book.

“Oh well, if you’re that scared of losing…” Dick trailed off dramatically. Tim frowned as he glanced at the two because Dick obviously had some sort of end game here and he wasn’t sure he liked it. That was another thing that had changed during the two weeks. Dick had been trying to socialise with Jason more much to Jason’s annoyance.

“I know what you’re trying to do and it’s not gonna work,” Jason shot back, eyes narrowed and jaw set. Good, Tim thought, because he really didn’t want to be dragged into this.

“No, no, I understand. You don’t want to lose so it’s easier to not play at all,” Dick continued goading Jason and right in that moment Tim wondered if he’d get away with jumping out the window. It was only the upper floor. He could survive that fall surely.

“Alright Goldie Locks, you’re on! I want Timbo on my team,” Jason snarled, looking like he was about to jump out of the armchair and claw Dick’s throat out. If only.

“Excuse me what now?” Tim asked, looking between the two older vigilantes.

“We’re doing the trivia thing, Timmy, deal with it,” Jason informed him all the while Dick smirked victoriously.

“Right, sure Jay, I’d love to join this pointless waste of everyone’s time. There’s just one little problem,” Tim said, his expression deadpan. “I really don’t want to.”

“That sounds like a you problem,” Jason shot back. Briefly, Tim considered if it would actually be worth it to argue that point.

No. No it would very much not be worth it. Even if he did end up winning the argument – the odds weren’t exactly in his favour – it would most likely leave him as drained of energy as just going along with the trivia game would. Not to mention, he’d upset both Dick and Jason which honestly wasn’t a smart move on the best of days.

“Fine,” Tim sighed, closing his laptop. “Just, one question since I’m assuming this will take up the entire night: who’s gonna be covering our patrols?”

“Barb will let us know if we’re needed. Otherwise, Bruce, Steph, and Cass got it covered,” Dick said easily. When had Cass even gotten back? Was she staying at the manor? If so, Tim sure hadn’t seen her. Not that that in itself was surprising but given the amount of time he’d been spending at the manor lately he was sure that she would’ve shown up to hang out with him or Jason or something.

“Not like I’m out patrolling anyways…” Jason grumbled to himself before fixing Tim with a slightly annoyed stare. “Don’t think you’re getting out that easy, Replacement.”

Instantly, Tim noticed Dick tensing up ever so slightly upon hearing Jason’s nickname for Tim. Honestly, Tim had gotten used to it by now. Sure, it wasn’t his favourite nickname but it did help knowing that Jason wasn’t using it out of malicious intent anymore. At least it wasn’t ‘Timberly’.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Edge Lord,” Tim shot back tersely. A snort left Jason while Dick seemed to be slowly relaxing once more so crisis averted in that regard. The last thing Tim needed was for Dick to start going off about how Jason shouldn’t call Tim that.

“Alright, I’ll get Damian,” Dick grinned, absconding before either of them could change their minds. 

Dick had been trying to make Game Night a thing for half a year now, it being his latest scheme to give the demon child some semblance of an actual, normal childhood. Because everything about this family practically _screamed_ normal, Tim thought sarcastically. Usually Dick got Steph or Alfred to join him and Damian while Tim had managed to avoid anything involving spending time with the gremlin so far. Leave it to Jason to change that up…

“Timmers, we’re in this to win,” Jason told him, leaving no room for argument.

“Right…” Tim voiced. Honestly, he didn’t know what exactly he’d been expecting but he really should’ve seen this coming. Might as well put some effort into the game now that he’d been forced to play it. “They’ll most likely pick the categories they assume aren’t our strengths.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something Dick would do,” Jason nodded, his book long since forgotten.

“If you try to get a read on Damian I’ll keep an eye on Dick, see which categories they dislike,” Tim suggested because he was not about to go into this challenge without some semblance of a plan. He’d seen the others play the game and as such knew how it was played – and that Damian and Dick had an advantage since they’d played the game before.

“Sounds good,” Jason nodded, looking pretty determined already. Tim could’ve sworn that the door leading to the neighbouring sitting room hadn’t been ajar before.

The demon child’s reaction when he entered the room was a clear indicator that Dick hadn’t shared who he’d strong-armed into playing. Tim sure didn’t miss the scoff that usually left Damian whenever they were forced to spend time with each other. All of a sudden Tim got very invested in winning because, in Tim’s personal opinion, Damian really didn’t need his ego fed anymore.

It wasn’t long before the rules were explained and the four of them had settled down to actually play it. One team would pick one of three randomised categories that the other had to answer a question about. If they answered correctly they could keep the card, if not, the card went into the discard pile which, after twenty minutes, still didn’t seem to have a lot of cards in it. Tim freely admitted that the four of them were taking the game a bit too seriously but he also wasn’t going to let Dick and the brat win.

“You keep choosing that category, choose another,” the brat huffed indignantly.

“Why? Are the questions too difficult?” Tim shot back tauntingly, barely holding back a smirk because he and Jason were currently winning, by a lot of points.

“I know what you are doing, Drake,” the demon child said lowly, eyes narrowed. While that tone and expression might’ve intimidated various henchmen, Tim only raised an eyebrow at the youngest Wayne.

“Alright guys, there’s no need to start something over this,” Dick was quick to intervene. Well, he’d been witness to more than one ‘discussion’ between Tim and Damian, meaning that he would know they didn’t exactly end well. “But maybe we should make a rule so we can’t pick the same category twice in a row.”

“Oh yeah? You that scared of losing, Goldie?” Jason grinned smugly, looking very satisfied with the current situation.

“No, but you’ve picked ‘electronics’ five times in a row now. How would you like it if we did that with ‘pop culture’, huh?” Dick replied tersely. Okay, so maybe Tim and Jason had quickly found out that Dick and Damian didn’t like that category and maybe Tim had made an educated guess about which of the cards would have that specific category on it and _maybe_ he’d made a point to pick those whenever his team had to draw a card. Maybe.

“Bring it, asshole,” Jason growled and Tim couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that. Was this what Dick felt like whenever Tim and the demon child argued? Wait, no, Dick was usually more worried than exasperated.

Turned out, due to the game being an older version, Jason actually knew the answer to the majority of the pop culture questions much to Tim’s amusement. On the other hand, Dick and Demon Spawn didn’t look like they were having much fun anymore. Honestly, Tim couldn’t find it in himself to feel bad about this considering that he hadn’t wanted to play this game in the first place.

“Suck it!” Jason laughed, a genuinely cheerful laugh that had Tim smiling as well.

“How… just… how…?” Dick muttered to himself, looking at the final score in despair. The brat was just scowling quietly.

“Kinda rude of you to assume that just cause I died I would be bad a pop culture,” Jason grinned, leaning back in his armchair.

“I demand a second game,” Damian scoffed, crossing his arms as he glared at both Tim and Jason.

Yeah, no, that wasn’t going to happen, Tim thought to himself, casually getting up and grabbing his empty coffee mug.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” Jason asked, regarding Tim rather suspiciously, his gaze clearly conveying ‘don’t you dare leave me with these idiots’.

Tim, however, held up his mug. “I need more coffee.”

He also needed to get some actual work done but Tim just hoped that if he took a while, the brat would get bored and just go spar with Dick or something instead of insisting on a rematch.

“You should really drink less of that; it’s not good for you,” Dick frowned.

Tim didn’t even reward that remark with an answer as he left, knowing there was a service staircase to the kitchen through the neighbouring sitting room. However, he did catch Jason telling Dick to shut it, he wasn’t the boss of Tim.

Honestly, Tim shouldn’t be so surprised to find Bruce quietly looking through a case file in the sitting room. It seemed like wherever Jason went in the manor, Bruce was hovering just out of sight and Tim would be surprised if Jason hadn’t noticed yet given how observant the older had proven to be. At least it seemed that Bruce respected Jason not wanting to talk to him although Tim couldn’t exactly tell if this was better.

Still, Tim closed the door behind him, frowning at Bruce. How many times had he actually been eavesdropping?

“Shouldn’t you be out patrolling?” Tim asked quietly because he sure didn’t want to be the one alerting Jason to Bruce’s presence just in case the former hadn’t noticed yet.

“I’m heading out soon,” Bruce replied shortly, obviously annoyed that Tim was interrogating him. And then he looked towards the door Tim had just closed, looking like he’d been punched in the gut, and Tim knew exactly why Bruce had been postponing patrol.

Jason had laughed, not just once but multiple times throughout the game, although there had been a bit - or a lot - of evil cackling as well. Sure, Bruce wasn’t exactly the easiest to read even under the best possible circumstances for the one trying to get a read on him, but there was no doubt in Tim’s mind what was going through Bruce’s.

“You know, if you stopped acting like Jason’s a threat he might not act like you’re one,” Tim said stoically before briskly leaving the room. He was decidedly not staying behind to see the exact impact his words had on Bruce because there were two ways that situation could go and Tim really didn’t feel like getting yelled at. Better to just let Bruce digest that sentence on his own.

When Tim returned, third mug of coffee in hand, Bruce was nowhere to be seen, neither were the case files, not that those really mattered.

Dick and the gremlin, however, hadn’t gone anywhere. Dammit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to say sorry for the long wait between chapters, I'm fully intending to finish writing this fic. University is just crazily stressful right now so I don't think that I'll be able to keep to an update schedule.


	9. Jason Todd

The sounds around Jason were muffled as he tried to look around. Time felt agonisingly slow, the distorted world coming sluggishly into focus. Something was wrong. Something was so, so, so _wrong._ Adrenaline and a sense of deja-vu fuelled his system as he looked around once more. Oh… Oh no. No. _No_. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t-

He had to get out, had to escape before-

Turning around, a white face came into view, crazed smile worn like a mask and Jason stumbled back as light glinted off of the crowbar.

“ _ **This is going to hurt**_ **you** _ **a lot more than it does**_ **me** _ **!**_ ”

Jason shot up in bed, reaching for the gun he kept under his pillow, for safety, only to find none there. Why wasn’t it there?! It was supposed to _be there_!

Looking around frantically, the surroundings unfamiliar darkness, Jason felt his chest constricting. He could still hear the laughter. That. Damned. Laughter. Everything hurt. Just like- No. Jason was not going down that train of thought. Not now. Not ever. Just breathe, he told himself. He just had to breathe.

All at once, his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, faster than they had before the- No. Jason physically shook his head, trying his damnedest to get rid of that thought.

“My name is Jason Todd,” he began slowly, voice shaking more than he cared to admit. “I’m at… the manor. I got hurt. I’m…” Safe? Was he really though?

Suddenly light flooded the room as the door was thrown open, an out of breath Bruce looking frantically around the room until his gaze finally settled on Jason who, at first, just stared at the intruder.

“Get out,” Jason managed, hating the fact that his voice was still quivering. “Get the fuck out!”

“Are you hurt? I heard screaming,” Bruce asked, taking a reluctant step towards Jason who flinched back as if hit. Had he… had he really screamed? The last time he’d done that had been back with the Outlaws. He was supposed to have this under control dammit!

“What do you care? Just fuck off!” Jason spat, anger masking his shock, his fear, at the fact that he’d gotten himself in this situation. If he’d just…

Bruce recoiled, looking as if _he_ was the one who’d gotten punched by Alfred. Honestly, Jason couldn’t care less. He just wanted the asshole Bat gone because one thing Jason really couldn’t deal with at that very moment was all of Bruce’s judgemental crap. Like, the glaring whenever they bumped into each other at the manor or the comments to people about how Jason had been in the cave when he knew Jason could hear him. Fucking hell, he didn’t fucking _ask_ to be brought to the cave when Alfred decked him! He was unconscious!

So obviously, Bruce didn’t care whether or not _Jason_ was actually hurt, no, he was just reacting instinctively to someone having screamed. Damn, he’d never live that one down. It’d been a year since that’d last happened. The nightmares had gotten better again, slowly. At least until he’d found himself trapped in the manor for the foreseeable future. Really, this was the damn manor’s fault, and Bruce’s, and Goldie’s, and the J-

“I said: get out!” Jason snarled, eyes trained on Bruce and part of him almost expected the bat to lash out, to yell back, to… to… to punch him and send him right back to Arkham because there was obviously something wrong with him and that was how Bruce ‘fixed’ every fucking issue he encountered, right? Just ship ‘em off to Arkham. They’ll be functioning members of society in no time!

“What’s going on? I heard-” the unmistakeable voice of Dick Fucking Grayson sounded because Jason sure did need a fucking audience right now. “Bruce? Is everything okay here?”

Bats seemed to look from Jason to Dick and back again before finally retreating, not saying a single word. Dammit, now he had to actually be _glad_ that Goldie-locks had showed up, Jason thought, mildly nauseated at the thought. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.

“What happened?” Goldie asked carefully, possibly knowing that he was on very thin ice currently. If Jason had had his guns he would’ve shot him. Hell, he would’ve shot Bruce. Maybe even Tim if the kid had barged into the room like Bruce had.

“None of your damn business,” Jason snapped, looking away. “Just fuck off already.”

How the fuck was he supposed to even try ignoring the nightmare when these idiots kept insincerely asking what happened and if he was alright. Fucking hell, no, he was not okay but he’d be damned if he showed just a hint of weakness in front of them.

At least Goldie took the fucking hint, unlike Bats, because after a few seconds of just staring at Jason he slowly closed the door and retreated hastily. Breathing out a breath of relief, Jason closed his eyes for a few seconds before reaching for the lamp next to him. He knew he’d never fall asleep now even if he wanted to, which he decidedly did not. So, picking up the book he’d started reading yesterday, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, he settled in for whatever distraction said piece of literature could offer, even if it felt impossible to completely erase that _laugh_ from his mind.

He was a chapter into the book when a quiet knock sounded on the door and Jason was seconds from just growling at the person on the other side to go to hell when he remembered that the only people in the Bat family, who actually knew what knocking is, were Alfred and Tim and the latter wasn’t at the manor.

“Come in,” Jason sighed slightly strained because on the one hand, he really didn’t want company but on the other, it was _Alfred_.

“Master Jason, I was made aware that you might be in need of a cup of tea,” Alfred smiled kindly, entering with a tray that was promptly placed on the bedside table.

Jason frowned slightly at that. One of the others had woken up Alfred, despite knowing that the butler needed his sleep, because of him? And now Jason was caught between wanting to tell Alfred that he was fine so the old man could go to bed and just quietly accepting the tea.

In the end, a cup of tea was pressed into his hands and he instinctively inhaled the scent of it before managing to mutter a quiet, gruff: “Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome, Master Jason. I took the liberty of plating a few biscuits for you as well,” Alfred continued kindly and once more Jason was filled with the eerie sense of deja-vu, except this was the real world, not the dreaming, not the nightmare.

Right. Alfred had done the exact same thing when Jason had just been brought to the manor and was plagued by nightmares from when he’d been living rough. Back when that was the only thing filling his nightmares.

Alfred didn’t wait for another reply from Jason, possibly knowing that he wouldn’t get one. “I shall leave you to your book now. Please try to get some sleep if at all possible, Master Jason.”

It wouldn’t be. Jason already knew that, but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless so no reason to confirm the suspicions that Alfred probably already had. After all, the butler had known that Jason hadn’t gone back to sleep back then. So as Alfred quietly left the room, Jason picked up the cup of tea and his book and settled in for a long night.

Suffice to say, when morning came, Jason had started on another book by one of the Brontë sisters, namely one of Emily Brontë’s works: Wuthering Heights.

It was still early enough that he knew he could hide out in the room without being disturbed by anyone else, namely Alfred or Timmers, but ultimately hunger got the best of him and he put the book down to go to the kitchen, silently hoping that no one was there.

Walking was getting easier by the day. Sure, still hurt like a bitch but he’d had worse and the little voice at the back of his mind telling him that he was recovering much faster than he would’ve because of the Lazarus Pit could shut the fuck up, thanks.

At first upon reaching the kitchen, slower than he would’ve liked but if he tore the stitches again Alfred might actually make good on his threat to tie Jason to the bed, he found it miraculously empty. Slowly, so as to not make too much noise and alert any of the others that he was there because he sure didn’t wanna deal with Goldie’s nosey ass this early in the morning, Jason got out ingredients to cook himself a proper breakfast. While Alfred probably would’ve been more than happy to cook Jason something, the vigilante honestly didn’t wanna add to the poor man’s workload. No, he was perfectly capable of cooking himself, at least Timbo didn’t seem to complain whenever he invaded Jason’s place.

The mushroom omelette was nearly done when he heard the door opening behind him. In hindsight, he really shouldn’t have glanced back, he should’ve just kept to his cooking and ignored the crap out of whoever had entered. He did glance back though. And immediately felt himself freeze.

Bruce just seemed to stare back at Jason, almost as if he hadn’t expected to find him there. But… that was different, the stare. Usually it was a glare where Jason could practically feel the disdain from the man he’d once considered a second father.

Okay, this was weird, Jason thought to himself as he made an effort to physically force himself to appear less tense than he was.

Bruce cleared his throat, a nervous tell if Jason remembered correctly, which he did. “How… are you?”

Now it was Jason’s turn to just… stare. Memories of multiple mornings where that exact question had been a stable presence in his day, where _Bruce_ had been a stable presence, seemingly haunting Jason’s thoughts. He didn’t even have the mental forethought to thinking up a snarky response. “What?”

Right, this had just gone beyond weird. Had he actually managed to fall asleep again? Did he somehow gain another fever overnight or something? Because this had to be a fever dream of some sort. There was no way Bruce cared enough to actually ask about his health. No fucking way in hell. Bruce hadn’t done anything other than glare and sulk ever since Alfred forced Jason to recover at the manor.

“How are you?” Bruce repeated slightly mechanically, like it was the sentence Jason hadn’t understood. Which, well, it was. Partly. The other part was that Bruce didn’t seem hostile. At all. Which… had to be some sort of cruel trick. Right?

Or worse, Bruce simply expected him to go off on another murderous rampage if provoked. Yeah, that had to be it. That was the only answer that made any semblance of sense. And while Jason knew that this was one of the bats’ main concerns, he couldn’t help but feel insulted.

“Just fucking peachy,” Jason growled, wanting to turn back to his cooking but also not willing to turn his back to Bruce. “So you can put away the straight-jacket.”

Jason grimaced ever so slightly when Bruce actually seemed to flinch at the reminder. What right did Bruce have to flinch at Jason’s reference to being thrown in Arkham? None was the answer. He had no fucking right.

“That’s not-,” Bruce began only to cut himself off with a deep frown that had Jason seething. Why was Bruce acting like this? Why did he have to suddenly change his tactics when Jason was finally somewhat sure where he had him, where they stood? Did he fucking enjoy making Jason suffer or was that just an added benefit to the big, bad masked crusader?

Oh shit, Bruce looked like he was about to say something else, something possibly related to Arkham. Nope. Jason was not about to get into that. Not now and, if he could avoid it, not ever.

“You know, you’re a dick for what you did to Tim,” Jason said accusatorially instead, shortly relishing in the fact that now it was Bruce who got thrown for a loop. “After I _died_ you should’ve known better than to put another kid in that costume.”

For a few seconds, Bruce stood there in stunned silence before finally narrowing his eyes in that glare Jason had gotten so familiar with these past few weeks. “Tim made his decision.”

“What, like I made mine? Or Dick made his?” Jason scoffed, almost wanting to laugh. “We were fucking kids! Children! We don’t get to make decisions like that! You’re the adult who should’ve known better than to let _children_ fight mass-murdering _psychopaths_!”

“There was no other-” Bruce started only to be interrupted when Jason actually did snort in disbelief.

“No, fuck that. It’s bullshit and you know it,” Jason said, leaving no room for argumentation. “There were so many reasons why you shouldn’t have put Tim in that damn costume. The first being that it got me killed and I _know_ , I _fucking know_ , that that… clown, went after him because of it. Second, you saw how that stupid name destroyed any chance for a friendship between me and Dick, so you decide to give it away again? How does that even make any sense?”

“Tim was out there chasing crime already. If I hadn’t given him the tools and training he’d have died as well!” Bruce argued, actually raising his voice in spite of all his Batman composure. Well, wasn’t that oddly nostalgic as well, Jason mused bitterly.

“You could’ve told his damn parents!” Jason exclaimed hotly. He would’ve appreciated it now if Bruce actually hadn’t let him become Robin, a conversation he’d had with Roy and Kori once before in the quiet privacy of Kori’s spaceship. Sure, kid Jason would’ve hated it but he would’ve been safer for it. He wouldn’t have lost years of his life. He wouldn’t be waking up screaming because-

“You didn’t know Tim’s parents,” Bruce simply said, like that was explanation enough. Like that made it all okay.

“No, cause I was fucking dead!” Jason shot back, taking a slight bit of grim satisfaction at how each reminder of that fact seemingly had Bruce pull a little bit more back each time. “And if they were that bad you should’ve just called the system on them and _then_ adopted Tim to make sure he didn’t go get himself killed.”

“Tim is still alive,” Bruce said in an obvious attempt to keep arguing. The unspoken ‘ _and so are you_ ’ didn’t go unnoticed either.

“Oh yeah and he is so much better off, isn’t he?” Jason retorted sarcastically, crossing his arms just to further get the point across. “Balancing vigilantism with a full time job where he pulls more overtime than 99% of the employees there.”

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, anything probably, before closing it, the set of his jaw clearly conveying his frustration with the direction Jason had taken the conversation. Mainly because they both knew there was no way for Bruce to win this argument. No amount of logical thinking or explaining could justify letting a child face off against criminals.

“Just get out of my sight,” Jason snarled, knowing he had won.

“This is my kitchen,” Bruce replied, sounding like a stuck-up brat who hadn’t gotten his way, in Jason’s personal opinion.

“Not right now it fucking isn’t,” Jason shot back, practically daring Bruce to try him. Jason could take a punch.

Which was how it probably would’ve ended had Alfred not decided that exact moment to enter the kitchen. The timing was too uncanny to be a coincidence but then again, Alfred was just that good.

“Master Bruce, Master Jason, I think you will find that this is in fact _my_ kitchen and I would appreciate it remain intact,” Alfred said, his voice cutting the tension like a knife which had both Bruce and Jason immediately backing down although neither of them were very happy about it. “Now, Master Bruce, I believe the young Master Damian was asking for you earlier.”

Bruce frowned at the obvious dismissal but not even he was about to ignore Alfred’s suggestions that in all actuality were orders. So, with one last scathing look at Jason, which Jason returned in full, he turned around and left.

“And Master Jason, I believe your omelette is burning,” Alfred remarked with that casual disappointment that had Jason whipping around to try and salvage the dish.

“Oh shit,” Jason cursed at the sight of it, only now noticing the distinct smell of something burning. It was, for lack of better words, inedible.

“Language, Master Jason,” Alfred gently chided him, effectively making Jason roll his eyes while simultaneously distracting him from how much he still wanted to punch Bruce’s face in. Mainly because they both knew that Jason usually got a free pass when it came to swearing. “Now, would you mind assisting me in preparing breakfast?”

Jason paused in his evaluation of whether he could just scrape off the black surface of the burnt omelette. “Sure, I’ll help.”

“Brilliant, Master Jason. If you would start on the pancake batter I shall handle the eggs,” Alfred smiled, taking the pan out of Jason’s hand and shooing him away from the stove.

When Jason turned back from gathering the ingredients, the burnt omelette was gone and the Butler was in the process of washing the pan. Another wave of nostalgia hit him like a punch to the gut. Alfred knew that, back then, Jason had felt guilty about throwing food in the trash, so back when Jason had started taking an interest in cooking, Alfred would quietly dispose of any failed attempts while Jason was distracted. Because god knew Jason couldn’t bring himself to toss it, not even now.

“Master Jason,” Alfred began quietly just as Jason had set out the things he needed. “I am very proud of you.”

It was all too obvious to Jason what Alfred was talking about but he had to make sure. “How much of it did you hear?”

“Enough,” the butler replied solemnly and Jason felt a small pang of guilt because Alfred had no doubt heard Jason yelling about his death and he knew the other didn’t like to be reminded. None of them did which was exactly why it was so useful in arguments against Bruce and Dick. “And I would like to express that I am glad at least one person in this family sees the error of making children vigilantes.”

‘In this family’. Jason didn’t have the heart to correct him, to tell him that he wasn’t part of this damn ‘family’. So instead he closed his eyes, breathed, and shrugged. “Kids are dumbasses and adults shouldn’t let them risk their lives every night.”

And he meant it. Jason meant that with every inch of his very being.

In that moment, if he had looked towards Alfred, he would’ve seen the butler pause, close his eyes, and smile before nodding to himself. “You are quite right, Master Jason.”

It was later that day when Tim arrived at the manor. Somehow, Bruce hadn’t stayed angry for very long and had for some reason, uncharacteristically, gone back to not glaring at Jason every chance he got and it was honestly starting to grate on Jason sanity, especially considering that they had had an argument _that very morning_. Even before the… just… before, Bruce would’ve been quietly simmering with anger for, at the very least, 24 hours. But now? Jason hadn’t even heard the telltale signs of Bruce listening in when Alfred had taken out Jason’s stitches after breakfast.

“Tim, Timbo, Timmers,” Jason began the second Tim had stepped into the room. Thank god he was here, Jason thought only to immediately punch himself mentally. “I’m going crazy here. Everything is horrible.”

The kid paused, slowly closing the door behind him. “How so?”

“It’s Bruce,” Jason said, those two words being enough in itself to make a look of understanding flash over Tim’s face. “He was… he was being _nice_.”

And immediately the look of understanding had disappeared as Tim just looked puzzled.

“I don’t see the problem here,” Tim frowned, making Jason scoff in insulted disbelief. The problem was fucking obvious!

“The problem, Timberly, is that he’s definitely planning something!” Jason explained stubbornly.

“Or,” Tim raised one eyebrow as he regarded Jason. “You’re being paranoid.”

“I’m not being fucking paranoid, Replacement! He’s being weird!” Jason snapped impatiently. Couldn’t Timberly see how much of a problem this was?

“But have you considered that you might just be paranoid though?” Tim smirked, narrowly dodging the book that was thrown his way by a glaring Jason. Seriously, why did the twerp have to be so good at dodging stuff thrown his way? “Alright, fine, but even if Bruce was planning something, do you really think Alfred would let him get away with it?”

Jason frowned at the book he’d thrown at Tim. The kid had actually decided to pick it up to give Jason his weapon back. “… No.”

“Although, if you really think he’s up to something I can do some detective work as well,” Tim shrugged as he set up his computer by one of the tables in the room.

“He’s just being weird and I don’t trust it,” Jason said, knowing that he didn’t have to directly agree for Tim to do his detective work.

Normally, at this point, Jason would’ve gone back to his book while Tim sat down and worked, but Jason couldn’t help but notice that Timbers had brought a few more bags than he normally did. Had he taken a car? Cause there was no way all of that would’ve fit on Tim’s bike.

However, what really gave Jason cause to pause was the fact that the item Tim pulled out from his bag was painstakingly familiar. “When the fuck did you grab my helmet, Timberly?”

“A few days ago, needed to install the communicator,” Tim replied idly, connecting various technical looking shit to Jason’s Red Hood helmet. Shit, that only went to show how much being at the damned manor was messing with him, Jason thought, he hadn’t even noticed his helmet missing from the room he was staying in.

Jason’s frown got deeper with that thought as he just observed Tim getting quietly to work. He was probably testing that everything was working correctly and shit like that. It was after about five minutes of loaded silence when Tim finally spoke up again.

“Alright, everything seems to be running smoothly. Here,” Tim said, throwing the helmet to Jason who caught it without pause even if his wound ached at the movement. “Put it on.”

Narrowing his eyes at the younger, Jason slowly did as asked, if only to find out what exactly Tim had done while messing with his helmet. “If you changed anything other than-”

“You’ll shoot me, yeah, I know,” Tim interrupted before launching into a long speech about the stuff he’d done which sounded way more complicated and technical than Jason would care for it to sound. Long story short, he could turn it on and off at will, establish a direct link with any one individual on the comm-system he’d been linked to as well as go into the main line which they all used, but most importantly, it was completely untraceable, even to Tim. “Once I’d made the actual communicator, I spent a lot of time thinking up various ways in which I could trace the signal if I wanted and countering them within the coding. If anyone hacks your communicator to trace you it will immediately cut off the signal and beep three times. That way you’ll know and can react accordingly.”

“… Alright,” Jason muttered reluctantly as he pulled off his helmet. “I guess I’ll take your word for it.”

“Or have Barbara look it over for a second opinion. I don’t mind,” Tim shrugged, starting to pack up all of his shit again.

Jason looked at the helmet in his hands. It was still scratched up from his last fight, meaning that Tim had taken him seriously when Jason had said not to touch anything else. He hadn’t even touched up the paint. Which… Jason could appreciate. Because at the end of the day, while people may think that that would’ve been an act of kindness so Jason wouldn’t have to do it himself, he really didn’t like others meddling with his stuff.

Putting the helmet on the table next to him, quietly resolving to get up and put it in the room with his other stuff before Alfred got on his case about it, Jason picked up his book again. Or he was about to when he noticed that Tim was actually packing up _all_ of his things, computer included.

“What, leaving so soon?” Jason quipped, making sure there was just the right balance of disdain and disinterest in his voice to mask the fact that he actually wanted to know.

“The Titans called on the way here. Something about an explosion,” Tim sighed, looking exhausted all of a sudden.

“What? In the Tower?” Jason asked, brows furrowing in slight confusion.

“That’s what they didn’t want to tell me, so, yes, in the Tower,” Tim frowned, shouldering his bags. And the nerd had still taken the time to give back Jason’s helmet and explain exactly what he’d done to it.

“Alright, good luck with that,” Jason shrugged, burrowing his nose in Wuthering Heights and pointedly ignoring Timberly who’d paused slightly at the insincere sounding ‘good luck’.

“Gee, thanks,” came the reply and had Jason looked up, which he most definitely did not, he’d have seen Tim rolling his eyes.

Still, as the door shut behind the only bat Jason actually sort of cared about, he couldn’t help his eyes from drifting to the helmet once more. How long had Tim actually spent working on that thing? The kid had looked damn near exhausted and, for a brief moment, Jason’s thoughts returned to his argument with Bruce. So… probably more time than he should’ve.

Well, Jason huffed, a frown betraying his thoughts. If the kid wanted to work himself to death that was his business. He wasn’t worried. Fuck that. Replacement could take care of himself. But maybe Jason would make a point to force naps upon him a bit more often than he had previously. Or something.

Tearing his gaze from the helmet, Jason glanced down into his lap. Book. Right. He had a book. To read. Which he was going to do… right after he’d put the helmet away, Jason resolved, got to his feet and grabbed the offending item.

It wasn’t exactly hard to dodge most of the bats at the manor now that he’d gotten most of his mobility back, even if the wound still stung like a bitch. And well, the manor had changed eerily little; all of his past spots still existed. Like, the hidden corner at the end of one of the many hallways, a place where none of them ever passed through since it’d be way out of their way. But it did feel weird to curl up with his book in that windowsill like he’d done so often all of those years ago. In away it felt almost wrong, like he wasn’t supposed to be there, which was why he’d been holing up in the more… populated areas of the manor instead of his… usual haunts, if they could even be called that. But with Bruce acting weird, Jason wasn’t gonna take any chances.

He sat there reading for a long time, longer than he’d intended, to be sure, because when he finally looked up it was to find dark clouds painting the night sky. Now, clouds were pretty standard in Gotham but there was a distinct difference between normal Gotham clouds and thunder clouds. For one, the air accompanying normal clouds didn’t make Jason’s skin crawl.

Grimacing, Jason tried to ignore it, concentrating on Wuthering Heights instead, only to be reminded that he’d skipped both lunch _and_ dinner when his stomach gave a loud grumble. Right. Food. He’d better get to the kitchen and grab something, Jason grumbled to himself as he marked his place in the book and pushed himself to his feet.

It was pure coincidence that Jason chose to walk past an open window, he hadn’t even given it a thought, but the second the smell of the storm hit him he felt himself growing increasingly agitated. Why the fuck was the window even open? He knew they all paid attention to the weather forecast, just so they knew what they’d have to deal with other than criminals, so they’d fucking known there’d be a storm, Jason reasoned. So why the hell had one of them opened the damn window and just left it like that? Like, water damage was a serious fucking issue. Right?

Jason slammed the window shut, scowling to himself, or more accurately, at himself. He knew why this was pissing him off and water damage wasn’t exactly it. No, it was the fact that the air outside smelled so uncannily like the pit that made him want to strangle someone. And he was still fucking benched. Stupid injury.

He’d almost angrily stalked his way to the kitchen when he heard the tiny Robin’s voice. Normally he wouldn’t have stopped to listen. In these circumstances he definitely didn’t care what the child was going on about. Except, Jason couldn’t help but overhear it cause Damian was literally in the middle of the foyer.

“This is not fair, I am more than capable of going out tonight!” the twerp hissed.

“I know, Little D, but Bruce said no,” Dick’s voice sounded. So the kid was benched too. That… didn’t make a lot of sense, what with Tim being out of town for the foreseeable future. That meant they only had Bruce, Dick, and possibly Blondie out there patrolling, which was… less than ideal.

Well, if Bruce and Dick wanted to get stabbed as well they were fucking welcome to it, Jason scoffed, continuing on his way to the kitchen. A cup of Alfred’s tea would be pretty good right about now, a bottle of whiskey would be even better but he severely doubted Alfred had started keeping that in his kitchen cabinets, so he'd settle for the tea.

A few hours later, Jason concluded that there must’ve been more windows open than the one he’d shut because the smell of the pit was overwhelmingly oppressive within the manor. God, he wanted to have a go at someone or something but even if he had been allowed in the cave he didn’t particularly want to go there. And he wasn’t about to break Alfred’s rule of no fighting in the manor; he didn’t really feel like getting punched again.

Not knowing what to do with himself, considering he couldn’t sleep even if he’d tried, Jason just wandered the manor aimlessly. He’d put Wuthering Heights back in the room, that he was still refusing to call his, feeling too restless to sit down with his book. Yeah, that bottle of whiskey would’ve really been nice – and he could easily pick the lock to the cabinet Bruce kept it in – but he really didn’t feel like getting into another shouting match with Bruce when he got back.

The storm had definitely picked up and at this point he was pretty much convinced that neither Alfred not the child was awake anymore only to be proven wrong as he almost walked past a gallery with the lights on. Glancing into the room he saw Damian, pencil in his hand as he sat hunched over a sketchbook. Jason was about to just keep walking, leave the kid to it, when he noticed the tense set of the younger’s shoulders. And it seemed awfully out of character for him to be tapping his foot so restlessly.

Then it dawned on Jason, the kid more likely than not felt just as uneasy being surrounded by the smell of the pit as Jason did. That… made too much sense. Well… what to do… At least the kid’s mutt wasn’t hanging around.

“You like to draw?” Jason voiced before he could even think to stop himself. The kid’s reaction was instant, head shooting up like a whip. Yeah, that kid was definitely feeling the effects of the storm’s air.

“I do not see why you would care, Todd,” Damian snapped tensely, eyes narrowed in a glare. Jason walked further into the room, catching a glimpse of the sketch before looking back up to see Damian glaring even more at him.

“Just haven’t seen you draw before but it looks good,” Jason nodded down to the sketchbook. The kid seemed to just scowl at him, clearly trying to figure out it Jason was lying. “So I wondered if you like it? Heard it takes a lot of practise to get good.”

Damian stared at Jason for a few seconds, slightly taken aback from the looks of it, but obviously still trying to ascess Jason’s truthfulness.

“I do,” Damian finally replied, hesitantly as if expecting Jason to make fun of him. “I enjoy it.”

Jason didn’t make fun of him, he just nodded and sat down in one of the chairs by the only window in the room. The silence that followed was… odd. Not awkward just, odd. Damian seemed to stare at Jason for a few more seconds before slowly going back to his sketch. Meanwhile, Jason’s gaze found the many paintings decorating the walls. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel as agitated as before. Maybe it was cause Damian was dealing with the same thing?

“So, you planning on going to bed at some point?” Jason asked offhandedly, not even looking at Damian but the sound of pencil on paper had stopped rather abruptly at the question.

“That is none of your business and for your information, I am perfectly capable of being up,” Damian replied curtly. Jason almost wanted to snort at how defensive the kid was being, not unlike how Jason himself had acted when he’d been living on the streets of Gotham.

“Didn’t say you weren’t,” Jason remarked with a shrug. “I’m not gonna sleep tonight either. It’s this fucking storm.”

When Damian didn’t immediately reply, Jason looked to him only to find the kid looking at him with an arched brow.

“Why Todd, are you scared of thunderstorms?” Damian asked haughtily, tsk-ing at the older vigilante which almost made Jason want to laugh. Damian might’ve been trying his very best to hide it but Jason could tell that it was mainly surprise that had the kid asking. Jason didn’t blame him.

“Nah, I just hate them, probably for the same reason you do,” Jason shrugged.

“Oh? And what exactly might that reason be?” Damian shot back, acting, for all intents and purposes, like he knew what Jason was talking about. It was a good act, Jason would give him that, but Jason was also pretty good at reading people and it was fairly obvious, to him, that Damian had no clue. Well, if the kid wanted to seem like he knew more than he did, Jason wasn’t about to call him out on it. It’s not like it really mattered.

“The air. It smells like the pit,” Jason said, looking out into the darkness of the storm. However, he didn’t miss how Damian’s eyes widened just the slightest bit, nor did he miss the second-long stunned look on the younger’s face.

Yeah, Damian hadn’t known exactly why he was feeling uneasy, that much was pretty obvious to Jason by now. It wasn’t like Jason really minded clearing that up; it must’ve been pretty fucking shitty to be benched by Bruce just cause the asshole had picked up on the uneasiness too. Now he knew, now he could deal with it like Jason did. Or maybe not exactly like Jason did. Alfred would probably kill Jason if he found out Damian started drinking at like, 12.

“I’m gonna go grab something from the kitchen, you want anything?” Jason asked, pushing himself up on his feet once more. Damian looked up in slight surprise, clearly not expecting this from the guy who’d spent most of his hours at the mansion trying to avoid everyone.

“Water,” Damian replied shortly, having finally decided that this wasn’t some trick Jason was trying to pull.

When Alfred the next morning walked into the kitchen to find both Jason and Damian carrying in cups and glasses, still in the clothes they were wearing yesterday, Jason wasn’t sure what exactly the butler was thinking but judging from the slight smile it couldn’t be anything good.

“What would you like for breakfast, Masters Damian and Jason?” Alfred asked kindly.

“We, uh, actually already ate,” Jason told him. “A few hours ago.”

He’d gotten hungry and, upon announcing that he was gonna grab something to eat, Damian had just sorta followed him. At least the kid didn’t talk his ears off, like Dick seemed prone to do to Tim and Damian these days. Hell, if he hadn’t had bat training he probably wouldn’t even have noticed the kid following him. But either way, it wasn’t really much of a hassle to make food for one more.

“I see,” Alfred smiled and turned to Damian. “In that case, Master Damian, perhaps it would be prudent to catch a few hours of sleep before heading off to school, lest your teachers catch you sleeping in class again.”

Well that was a veiled order if Jason had ever heard one. And he had. On multiple occasions. From Alfred. The teachers had probably called Alfred about Damian falling asleep in class, if Jason were to guess, and the butler didn’t seem very impressed. To be fair, neither did the kid who locked eyes with Alfred as if glaring the old man down would get him anywhere. It hadn’t worked back when Jason had tried it and it probably wasn’t gonna work now.

Just as expected, a few moments later Damian looked away, clicking his tongue in annoyance. However, Jason could’ve sworn he head the kid mutter under his breath as he was leaving: “If they stopped telling me things I already know I wouldn’t fall asleep.”

“You also look like some sleep would do you well, Master Jason,” Alfred said, much to Jason’s exasperation.

“I’m good,” Jason replied hastily, already sure that sleeping would only lead to another nightmare and after he’d screamed in his sleep during the last one… Yeah, Jason didn’t think he was gonna sleep anytime soon.

Alfred, however, frowned at that answer, putting down the saucepan he had been holding. “Master Jason, I am quite sure that you have barely slept the last two days.”

He’d barely slept the last two weeks would be more accurate but Jason didn’t dare to correct the butler. Alfred would probably bodily haul him into bed if he learned that that was the case.

“My wounds almost healed though and it’s probably high time I head back home,” Jason deflected, not missing the slight hurt in the other’s eyes but what had Alfred expected? That Jason would spend weeks confined in the manor and suddenly decide to move back in? To consider that place his home again? No matter how much Jason hated hurting Alfred, it wasn’t gonna happen, especially not when he could barely get a few hours of rest without nightmares.

“I… suppose it is time,” sighed Alfred albeit not looking happy with the fact. “I shall drive you back personally, Master Jason. Just allow me to pack you some leftovers and-”

“Actually, I’d rather take my bike,” Jason interrupted gently, already mentally preparing for the telling-off that was no doubt heading his way.

“I do not think it would be wise in your condition,” Alfred argued, glancing over Jason’s form worriedly.

“I’ve had worse,” Jason shrugged nonchalantly and at this Alfred didn’t argue back because Jason had indeed had worse. Almost immediately, Jason realised how he’d just inadvertently reminded Alfred that he’d died. Dread settled in his stomach as he watched the butler turn away from him.

“You are quite right, Master Jason. Allow me to simply pack some leftovers for you then,” Alfred smiled politely. Shit. No. Alfred had gone back to niceties and politeness which meant that Jason had fucked up. Badly.

He wanted to say something, anything, to somehow remedy the situation, to make Alfred forget he’d said anything or, better yet, laugh. This wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t gone to the manor when he’d gotten injured. Jason shouldn’t have relied on Alfred and the bats, that much was painstakingly obvious to him. He shouldn’t even have come into their lives again, not when his presence was just gonna be a constant reminder of all the horrible shit that had happened.

It wasn’t like he’d meant to remind Alfred, Jason just… didn’t think that the old man’s mind would immediately go there. He’d wanted to allude to one of the many other damn situation where he’d taken a beating. Sure, Alfred didn’t want to be reminded of those times either but it was better than the death thing. Dammit, this wasn’t how he’d wanted to win this argument.

Before he could come up with something to say, Alfred had already turned towards him with a bag that looked to have enough food to feed Jason for at least a week. “Do you require any help with packing?”

Packing what exactly? His vigilante gear? That was already in an old duffel bag he had… liberated from Tim’s old room. Everything else was stuff he’d been given while he wasn’t allowed to leave and Jason wasn’t about to accept Bruce’s damn charity if he could help it. Although, the book he’d been reading might find its way into the duffel bag before he left.

“No. No, I’m good,” Jason said cautiously, scanning Alfred’s expression only to find the butler having successfully composed himself. Not a trace of the previous hurt was detectable but Jason knew and that was bad enough.

“In that case, would you like a less conspicuous helmet for your motorcycle?” Alfred asked Jason who just stared at him owlishly. He’d just been planning on driving without one since his Red Hood helmet would attract more attention that he cared for at this time of day. It wasn’t like wearing one really mattered. Or well, in Jason’s mind it didn’t but the look Alfred was sending him spoke volumes of his thoughts on the matter. “I should be quite devastated were the worst to happen.”

Jason flinched. The comment was not exactly uncalled for. In fact, he’d deserved that one, he knew, for reminding Alfred in the first place. Problem was, now he couldn’t answer anything other than what Alfred wanted. He’d have to accept a damn helmet and while that chafed, it was at least better than hurting Alfred’s feelings. Again.

“Fine, alright,” Jason muttered, already hating the idea. He could’ve said that it almost sounded like Alfred didn’t trust his driving skills, joked about the fact, but he didn’t want to inadvertently hurt Alfred again. One time seeing that flash of hurt in the old man’s eyes was one time too many, in Jason’s opinion.

It was only later, as he pulled up in front of his apartment complex, wound hurting from the ride, that Jason realised Alfred’s ploy. Jason would have to give the helmet he’d been forced to borrow back, meaning he had to go back to the manor. Sure, he could probably ask Tim to take it but that wouldn’t fly with Alfred, Jason just knew that.

Letting out a string of curses, Jason grabbed the duffel bag harshly and stomped into the building only to curse once again as he remembered a detail that had seemed so very unimportant when he’d bought the apartment: there was no elevator. He lived on the top floor.

Karma most definitely had it in for him, Jason concluded before gritting his teeth and beginning the long, agonisingly painful climb. A part of him couldn’t help but feel that he deserved it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for the long wait. We're apparently a lot more productive when we can use this as an excuse to procrastinate reading stuff for uni classes XD Have had half of this chapter written for months now. 
> 
> Also, shoutout to the Tumblr user who posted that thunderstorms smell like the Lazarus Pit. If any of you know how to find the specific post I would love to know so I can put a link to it because we cannot, for the life of us, find it.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism in regards to grammar, pacing, and the like is appreciated. Please drop a Kudos if you like the story :)


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